


In Life and Death, a Chainless Soul

by shewhotalkstohyacinths



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Family Drama, Father-Daughter Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape Recovery, Slow Burn, Transgender
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-06 22:21:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5432918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhotalkstohyacinths/pseuds/shewhotalkstohyacinths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to my story, Still I Rise - and still going with the same poet for the title of the story.</p><p>This picks up where SIR left off. Chibs and Juice are on their way to Ireland to sort out some family problems, to confront a club that perhaps has ran its course and to try to continue picking up the pieces of the club Jax left behind. </p><p>This is a repost of a story I deleted out of sheer lack of confidence but, since I'm working on it again, I thought I would put it back up. Anyone who left Kudos before, I am very grateful and can only apologise that my own flaky self got cold feet. I don't have a lot of confidence in my writing, which has always been a problem, and I didn't want to continue with a story I never had any inspiration to finish. </p><p>I'm feeling inspired again...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

## Chapter 1 – Iron Skies

There's a iron cylinder in the sky. It's herding hundreds of people leaving one place and headed to another, sky bound cattle at the mercy of two men in a control room. Chibs watches it from a tinted window, how its wings tilt and it's body twists, how its nose faces the Heavens as if awaiting an invitation.

There's a 50% chance he won't get on the plane and it's growing with each and every gust of wind that batters against the glass. It's not cowardice. It's self-preservation.

Chibs had thought his fear of flying was unfounded until Malaysian Air, until 9/11, until that flight that vanished into thin air taking all aboard with it. There was an incident where a pilot lost himself and decided to take a jump into the abyss along with his 150 passengers and, isn't that a terrifying thing? Isn't it God-awful to put your life in the hands of a human being who could flip at any second?

Sitting in the airport departure lounge, the back of his neck damp with sweat and his whole body buzzing with nervous energy, he’s wondering if the fears were unfounded at all.

"Chill out, Chibby," Juice whispers, that little voice of reason in his ear. "At your age, this kind of stress isn't healthy. I don't wanna lose you to American Airlines."

It's physical, and he's pretty sure if they hooked him up to monitors and scanners they'd be able to detect it. They'd see his stress in jagged lines and spiking charts. BP, heart rate, temp, all would be elevated just by the thought of getting on that fucking plane. What's that if not warning?

"It's a real thing," he insists. "Common. If God meant for us to fucking fly he'd have given us wings."

"And, if he didn't mean for us to fly he never would've created the Wright Brothers."

Juice calls it psychosomatic, the cocky little shit, and Chibs can only glare at that.

"I'm a lot of things, but psycho?"

The kid pats him on the shoulder and flashes that mega-watt smile. It's not welcome at this point, not when Chibs feels the butterflies are actually maggots and they're eating through the lining of his stomach.

"That's not what it means, bro. Just take an Ativan and relax. I'll sell it to you. Fifty bucks. All legit. I got a prescription."

"You're too generous, Juicy Boy."

"Brothers rate, man. You can't ask for more. I think the word you're looking for is 'savvy'!"

"That right?"

"Oh, yeah. I might look dumb? But I got it all going in up here."

His index finger taps against the side if his head and the look is one of absolute confidence. It raises a smile, the first of the day, a smile which says "I love you, but you piss me off something terrible."

Maybe it’s not just the flight Chibs is concerned about but what lies at the other side of it when the wheels touch down and the door to the steel coffin opens. Ireland’s a green place, beautiful and magical, the Emerald Isle where leprechauns dance and pots of gold lie at every rainbow.

That’s what the _legends_ say, anyway.

For Chibs, Ireland represents something else entirely. It represents the failure of his youth, the empty shells of broken marriages and absenteeism and a daughter who barely knows him. The ghosts of The Cause linger on every corner, with every burned-bark tree and every shell casing found along a busy path.

There's a lot of conflict in those lands, a lot to fear in the North but, strangely enough, it’s none of those things that play on Chibs’ mind.

It’s his daughter, sixteen years old and as fierce as her mother, her father's iron will solidifying her in a way that belies her pretty face and dainty frame.

He said he’d be there for her First Holy Communion and wasn’t. That was nine years ago and it scares him to death because it feels like only yesterday she was wearing that long white gown, like a tiny bride of Christ, and throwing herself into a Holy Father’s arms when her own father was barely there for her. He’d been in prison at the time, a six month spell inside for discharging a weapon in public, and the only saving grace had been that it could’ve been worse.

He swore that day he’d be there any other time she gave herself to God.

There’s a part of him that wonders if he could even enter a church now without being cast out. Would the very foundations shake in his presence? Since what he has with Juice is so against the bible Kerrianne puts so much faith in, would they both be struck down, Omen style, with a rod through the neck?

Maybe it’s a fear of God rather than a fear of Flight.

It could be it’s a fear of Kerrianne herself.

"Well _I_ for one can't wait to see the guys. Fehilly's fucking hilarious."

"Aye. A complete arsehole, but if he makes you laugh..."

"...all is forgiven."

Juice smirks as he puts his feet up on the glass table in a lounge that’s far too plush for the likes of them. He’s sipping whiskey in an ice-filled tumbler and there’s a high likelihood he’s going to be half-smashed by the time the wheels leave the ground if he carries on the way he’s going. He claims flying doesn’t bother him but Chibs caught him looking up crash stats online a few days back and he’s pinned it down to preservation of masculinity ever since.

Chibs worries not about masculinity. His balls are as big as houses and he prides himself on the fact.

“Look," Juice sighs, "you’ve got eleven hours and a connecting flight before you have to deal with any of what’s goin’ round that head of yours. Just sit back, old man. Have a drink. Think about nothing."

"Easy for a thick bastard like you to say."

"You know the stats on plane crashes? You’re more likely to die in a station wagon. Soccer moms, man. They're dangerous. Just think of that beautiful daughter of yours.”

"She's all I'm thinking about. That's the problem, Juicy."

He doesn't know how she'll respond to the fact that her father is sleeping with the kid she went beet-red over a few years back, a shock to the system for anyone, no doubt, but for a sixteen year old girl it could be world changing. He tries to imagine how he would've felt if his own father had gently dropped that bomb in front of him and it doesn't sit right.

It itches deep inside in a place he can't scratch to relieve.

"She fancied you, y'know? Fiona told me. She wrote about you on her Twatter."

"Twitter, Chibs, c'mon, you're not that old. And no, she didn't."

"Aye, she did. How's she gonna take this, eh? What's she gonna say? Her old man's screwing that cute lad with the daft haircut he brought home when she was 12. It's gonna blow her mind."

 "Is _that_ what’s got you all antsy?”

 "It wasn’t _just_ the flight. Christ, give me _some_ credit.”

It's what’s had him 'all antsy' for weeks. He keeps playing it over and over in his mind and each and every time it comes back even more twisted than before.

J _esus._  

"Listen, man, we take it as we see it. If they're not ready to hear it? I'm still an emotional fuck up you can't leave alone for a second in case I do something dumb with a blade or a chain. Nothing more. We just leave it at that. Okay? It's what they already think. Poor little Juan Carlos needs a daddy."

It's how he had explained Juice's presence in his place when he'd sleepily answered the phone one night. Fiona had known about Juice's struggles through Chibs' frantic 2am long-distance contacts as the months went by. He would plead for her counsel and she would give what she could. She had been the one to warn him back in Ireland that this was a Son who needed looking out for.

('I see it in his eyes. He's just a wee boy, Filip, and this is no life for wee boys. The way he was with Kerri? That's a good lad. You know what happens to good lads. Remember Malachy?')

Malachy Murphy was Juice all over. The IRA had chewed him up and spat him out. The last anyone heard of that kid, he was living rough in Derry and shooting up any time he could get his hands on a rock.

That was a good wee boy, too.

"Just look out for him."

He'd told Fiona, in mock hush tones, that Juice was in a bad way; that he'd taken him in to try to salvage some of the mess the club had left him in. She told him he was a good man and it had bruised him a little because she didn't know just how wrong she was.

He looks at Juice now and he sees no mess. He sees a shiny new thing with thoughts and insights, a wonderful thing, a beautiful thing, and he nods his head in agreement with him.

"Okay, lad. That sounds like a plan."

He stopped denying it with his brothers months ago because there stopped being a point. It became harder to hide the things that were not said.

This is where they exist now, in the space between their words, They both know it's there. They both hear the way it tears at the edges of their syllables and imbues every sentence with a desperate, wistful desire.

('Jesus, even the way you say his name like he's your fucking oxygen supply. You think we couldn't hear it?')

The boys shrugged their shoulders and moved on. There's a lot more at stake with his ex-wife and child, especially a child as God-fearing as his little girl.

"It'll be good," Juice tells him. "It'll be grand."

Chibs is not so sure.

(*)

Things have changed a lot back at the Club and, for Chibs, the trip is perfectly timed. Any sooner and he would’ve felt like he was leaving the boys in the lurch with too much on their plate to handle. Any later and he’d feel he’d left it too long to even contemplate a route-back with his daughter, fast-approaching adulthood without having a reliable paternal presence in her life, and it hasn’t failed to cross Chibs’ mind that there’s a good chance she’ll have a son or daughter of her own in coming years.

He wants to make amends while he still has the chance, wants to prove to her that he does bear her in mind and, no matter the distance between them, she is as important to him as his other ‘family’ are.

It’s not that he didn’t trust Tig before, he’d trust the guy with his life and has done on many occasions, but the Tig that was with them during Jax’ reign wasn’t the Tig he had grown to love. It was an imposter that wore the trademark Trager eyes and the fast-diminishing Tiggy smile. That Tig was flaky and unreliable, a man inclined to jump in headfirst, consequences be damned. A lot of shit went down because of his fragile hold on right and on wrong.

He knows that.

He fights daily to make amends for that.

Now, he’s grounded, weighted by a man with a woman’s soul, and there’s no hesitation in leaving the club temporarily in his capable hands because there is no doubt in Chibs' mind that Venus wouldn't _let_ him fuck it up.

“If there are any problems,” Chibs had tried to say only to be shut down before he could even complete the sentiment.

“I got Chucky,” Tig had asserted.”He’s not so good with his hands but he’s good with numbers. Now that he's back full time what could possibly go wrong?"

“You’re right there, brother, but he’s not exactly one to turn to if the shit hits the fan.”

“There will be no shit hitting any fans in the five days you’ll be gone, Chibs.”

“Aye, but if there is?”

“Then, we band together. We get through it. You made me VP, Chibs. You wouldn’t have done that unless you trusted me.”

It’s not that he’s not grateful for the peace, nor is he thankless about the way things have gone these last months. It’s just that he’s so used to conflict he finds it difficult to rationalise the world he lives in without it. Fiona used to say he sought it out like an addict looks for that elusive high to compete with their very first rush; that adrenaline is his crack and danger is his holy grail.

It’s just that he’s never known life without it and he finds himself forever waiting for the next pothole in the road; the next crack in the pavement that’s going to trip him up, send him falling.

For Juice it’s very much the same. It’s why his record is full of petty misdemeanours and delinquent behaviours running back to when he was a teen. He put it down to his ADD, undiagnosed until he was sixteen and he had that spell in the hospital. He was always on the lookout for something to occupy his mind, something to give him that adrenaline rush and that epic high. He had a bit of an issue with speed when he turned eighteen because there weren’t enough hours in the day and it kept him awake at night to fill them. The ADD meds did nothing but scramble his mind so he embraced it, enhanced it.

He saw it as a gift; a super power.

Juice wasn't lying when he told girls he could go all night.

Since they got on a straighter path, Juice has focused his energies into creativity, moving from bikes to tattoos. He’s nowhere near ready for flesh, not yet, but he tattooed his first pigskin last week under Happy’s strict supervision. The results left a lot to be desired but Hap has labelled him a natural, told him he’d be painting art across beautiful women’s asses in no time.

He hasn’t been picked up by the cops since he got out, something he considers a personal best.

Chibs likes to think it his own calming influence.

Looking at him now, fast asleep against the uncomfortable airline seat with his knees pulled up to his chest, Chibs marvels at him in rest because Juice is _never_ truly still, not even like this. His mouth twitches with every breath, his fingers clasping and releasing the hand-rests tight enough that his knuckles turn white. Chibs will have bruises in his thigh from those fingers digging hard when the wheels rose from the tarmac because Juice may tease him for his own fears but he has fears of his own.

Chibs looks out of the window at the blanket of clouds and they don't look like anything but atomic bombs to him. Hiroshima in the sky; Nagasaki in the air.

Fat man and little boy.

Maybe that's what he and Juice are.

As Chibs leans his own head against that seat-back and waits for himself to drift away it’s with the knowledge that if they were to fall out of the sky then at least they’d be together and whatever is in store for them when this life ends, at least they’d make the journey together.

Juice’s greatest fear has always been to live alone and to die alone.

If Chibs were being honest, he’d say the same thing was true of himself.

(*)

Change is a thread that runs through all areas of Chibs' life.

As with the club, it's evolved since the last time they touched down in Belfast. There are no bikes this time. They hire a car, a modest Ford Escort with no frills and no flounces, just something to get them from A to B. They'll check in on SAMBEL but this is a personal visit. Away from club business they’re dressed in casual clothing, Juice in a pair of jeans and a Rolling Stones tee and Chibs in what Juice lovingly refers to as ‘dad pants’ and a simple sweater.

Juice, sans tattoos and Mohawk, doesn’t stand out. Chibs, his mouth sliced from jaw to corner, is seen as just another Glasgow victim.

Such is the way of things that nobody bats an eyelid.

Juice stares out of the window as Chibs drives. He had a few too many whiskeys on the plane and wouldn’t be fit to drive and that, coupled with a rancid time in immigration, has left him a little frazzled. Still, he looks out of the window at the lines of shops, at the rows of houses he refers to as ‘projects’ only to be ably corrected to ‘council estates’, and he sighs.

“It aint like home here."

He sounds troubled, like the thought of Chibs' family living in a place like this saddens him. He knows how hard Chibs argued to bring them to the states with him, how worried he gets when he hears of potential troubles and unrest.

"You're right there, Juicy."

"Kinda reminds me of the shitty parts of Queens we're I stirred up all my shit as a kid. It's hard to be a good kid in places like this."

“Ah, there are some nice parts. This is just the rough part. I’ll drive you out to Cavehill while we’re here. You’ll like it there. Me and Fi used to take Kerri there when she was a bairn. She loved it.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not all grot, lad. You have to look beyond. Like with me."

"You're not grot, Chibby. Stop fishin' for compliments."

The truth is, Chibs has never been happy about leaving his daughter behind, not in a place like this. Get on the right side of your kin and the community spirit’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Bonds form in adversity. People who share it are strong and tight. Get on the wrong side? It can be Hell on Earth.

He just wants them to be safe, but you can’t uproot a kid that doesn’t want to be moved.

This is all she’s ever known.

“I hear they’re livin’ in a nice little cul de sac. It’s got a garden. Four bedrooms. They've got a Jack Russell. It’s a step up. If they’re insistent on staying here I’m not having them living in some shithole, not now that they’re on their own.”

"You'd rather it was how it used to be?"

"Christ no. Rather a life of solitude than go a day with the likes of Jimmy."

He'd threatened Kerrianne. Chibs remembers how sick he'd felt when that bastard had talked about his daughter's beauty, her budding breasts, all the things a man doesn't want to contemplate about his bairn.

He hopes the bastard died choking on his own terror.

“Has she met anyone? Fiona?”

“Aye, I think she might’ve. She’s mentioned a fella named Colin a few times. Stupid fucking name. He’s not involved in any of the MC shite and he’s not IRA. Apparently, he works in agriculture. Some kind of farmer. Red face and everything. She assures me he doesn't fuck sheep. Says he's not Welsh."

 “You’re kidding. A farmer?”

“Fiona wasn’t after the cut. She loved me for me. It happens."

It's rare in a world of crow eaters and hangers on but Chibs knows without a doubt that Fiona would've followed him even if he were a lowly shelf stacker in Asda or Tesco earning minimum wage for no rewards at all.

He sighs wistfully as he looks out of the window.

"She still loves me," he says. "I know that much. She never loved Jimmy. He just offered her something I couldn't give her at the time. I was her one."

It's a difficult thing to admit, even know.

"I know," Juice says. "I know, brother."

Chibs doesn't speak aloud how it's going to break her heart, this thing he and Juice have.

The kid doesn't need that kind of guilt hanging over him.

(*)

Colin, apparently, may well be an agriculturalist. He may be a farmer. He may well culture the most beautiful roses the county has ever seen, raise the healthiest sheep for the best meat and the greatest monetary return.

 Judging by the poorly concealed bruise on Fiona's cheek as she opens the door and welcomes them with open arms, he clearly follows Jimmy's lead when it comes to dealing with women.

 She smiles at Chibs and it's a smile he doesn't recognise, not on Fiona's face.

She looks frantic.

"I'm glad you're here," she whispers, softer than she ever has. "Maybe you can talk some sense into her as her dad because I'm getting nowhere as her mammy."

"What do you mean?"

Fiona was never hesitant. Not like this.

When she lifts a hand to her bruised cheekbone it's like she's fighting against it.

"What, you mean Kerrianne did this? My baby girl did this to her mother?"

"She's been runnin' round with a prospect. He's got her into weed and Christ knows what else. She's been kicked out of school. I can't get through to her."

"What do you mean, you can't get through? You gave birth to her."

"I can hardly tell her to stay away from the club, can I? I didn't stay away from the IRA. Threw myself in head first at her age, the cause _and_ the club. SAMBEL? It isn't what it was, Filip. There's a lot of ugliness in there. A lot."

 "Her confirmation?"

Fiona shrugs helplessly. She's at the end of her rope, that much is plain to see.

"Like I said, she was kicked out of school. It's not happening."

It's only now it's all been said aloud that it hits Chibs. The thought of his child going off the rails, falling into disturbing patterns, destructive and dangerous, it sinks him.

 It maims him.

 "Christ."

He's left it too late.

"Just come inside, Filip. It's freezing. You'll catch your death out there. Both of you."

She nods her head towards Juice, tells him "welcome, sweetheart."

He nods back, smiles at her sympathetically.

Part of Chibs has already caught his death. Life catches in his throat. Regret has him by the neck, squeezing the father out of him.

He feels Juice's comforting hand on the small of his back and it's the only thing that keeps him here.

"C'mon Chibby," the younger man whispers, sympathetic, encouraging.

"Okay," he says, though admittedly it isn't. "Alright."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2, slightly tweaked from before. Thank you for those that left kudos. I know most probably got sick of me ;)
> 
> Will reply to comments ASAP but...thanks :)

Juice finds himself alone with Fiona. Chibs is outside bringing things in from the car. He's taking that precious few moments Juice knows he needs to gather himself. That's why he's left him alone, so that the pieces can fall into place for him and it can all work itself into a workable format.

('You need to defragment. I get it. I do that all the time.')

Gemma used to say there were very few women on this Earth who intimidated her, Fiona being one of that few. What she lacks in statute she makes up in sheer presence and there's something in her eyes that warns a person not to fuck with her. Gemma called her an Irish bitch but acknowledged she was a woman after her own heart who would tear apart the world for her child. Gemma respected her, even if she didn't like her. 

Gemma, Juice recalls, liked very few people. That always made him special and, when she told him he was her favourite, it warmed him in a way that feels kind of sad and empty.

Looking at Fiona now it's hard to imagine her intimidating anyone because, in a cruel shift in her universe, that same child is tearing her world apart. She wears her weariness like a rock around her neck. It weighs her down, weights her like there's a physical pull to it. 

Juice knows all about that.

It's only recently he cast his own rock aside.

"How are you doing? I know you were having a shitty time."

"Yeah, I'm good. Getting better all the time."

He paints on a confident smile because this is what he does when he feels tension. He tries to lighten the mood. The smile becomes conspiratorial as he leans forward so as not to be heard. 

"Between you and me? He only asked me to come because he's afraid to fly and didn't want to go it alone. I think he may have broke my hand, he squeezed it so hard. Lotta strength for an old man."

"Ah, you're good for him. He's a lot more mellow since he took the gavel. I never thought I'd say it but it's been the making of him."

With power becomes great responsibility. A byproduct of that is often a calm maturity that wasn't there before. 

Juice can see it. 

"He misses his girls. He talks about you all the time. I feel like I know you."

"A lot's changed since you were last here. For all of us."

Age has caught up with her. She's still attractive, always will be, but stress has formed lines that maybe weren't there before and her once bright eyes are lacklustre and tired. He's seen the same look in his sisters eyes from time to time when Theo has kept her awake for nights on end and it worries him. It worries him that he frays her so much because he knows his sister's fuse can be as short as his own. 

He imagines Fiona has blown up a few times. 

"What's happening? At the club, I mean?"

"It's all just gone to the wolves. In-fighting. Lack of respect. They were always walkin' the fine line but they're heading for a break. I can see it coming from a mile away. I warned Kerri not to get involved but you know how teenagers are. Everything's a rebellion. Aidan's not a bad kid but he's got some bad habits."

She sighs, takes a drag from her cigarette and looks off into the distance like the answer might be to the left somewhere. 

The answer is pretty clear.

"She's hitting out at me because of Colin. I know that."

It's the curse of a child from a broken home. 

Hope.

"She thought you and her dad might have a shot?"

It's every adolescent's dream, for their estranged parents to finally realise they're still in love. Even as a small child Juice wanted a mom and a dad, just like the other kids in school. It didn't matter to him that half his friends' parents hated each other. He just wanted to be whole and loved. 

His mother told him his dad wasn't fit to take care of him. He knows Chibs would've been capable of taking care of Kerri. It's only now he realises how wrong he was to shirk that responsibility.

The fact the girl still loves him is everything. She could hate him. She could despise everything he stood for. She'd be entirely justified...

"Kerrianne's always idolised her father," Fiona explains, gently sipping her tea from china that's so generic it's clear she stopped caring long ago. "It's easy to put a man on a pedestal if you barely know him. She doesn't understand it'll never work with me and Filip. Too many old bruises. Too many ghosts "

She smiles as she looks at Juice, as if she's apologising for her failed marriage, as if the thought of her falling away from Chibs might be offensive to him in some way.

Juice says nothing.

She doesn't need to know right now, not this raw, not this pained. She doesn't need to know he took up where she left off and that man her daughter holds on a pedestal has never quite fallen from his. 

"You're a poster child for how warped club life can get, Juice. You should know how screwed up members and old ladies can be."

"Of course I do."

"She liked you. You were all she talked about for weeks. Maybe something good could come from what was done to you if you told her how it really is. I've tried. She doesn't listen. I could talk til the cows came home and she'd still go ahead and do what she likes."

Juice imagines it as something akin to a former addict doing a school tour giving kids the hard sell about just how much crack can screw up your life. Learn from my experiences. Listen to me because I've lived them.

He's the last person who should be teaching anything but, if she thinks it'll help...

"The thing is, Fiona, I'm all good now. The guys are all behind me. If you're looking to warn her off -"

She touches the back of his neck. He's not expecting it and he instinctively flinches, pulls back as if she's burned him. His shoulders come up, his mouth open silently in a show of discomfort.

He loses eye contact because he loses focus, lost in the residual memory of another hand holding him, forcing him down. 

This, in itself, is a show of proof and he truly hates himself for it.

"I'm sorry, I -"

"S'alright, lad."

Juice's emotions are fresh wounds, ready to eke blood if the circumstances are correct. He is a live wire that can short circuit if it is crossed. He wraps himself in layers of wit in the hopes of keeping himself safe but sometimes the layers fall away and all that's left are the scars.

('It'll creep up on you, small triggers, brief regressions. Don't beat yourself up over them. It's natural.')

"All good?" she said, eyebrow raised but expression deeply empathic. "You sure about that, love?"

He ducks his head, embarrassed, ashamed. It doesn't matter how many times he plays Harlow's words back, they simply don't stay.

"I didn't do that to prove a point. Morrow thought me a hard bitch but I'm not that cruel."

He shrugs his shoulders, defeated by his own nervous twitch.

"You might not have been trying to prove a point but... I guess I kind of proved it anyway. I'm not okay. Not by a long shot. But, I'm better."

She runs her fingers through his hair, wayward as always, thick and untamed. This time, he doesn't flinch.

"Ah, Juice. They really did a number on you, didn't they?"

It's sad. It's true. There was such a thin line between friend and enemy.

"Yeah, they did. Jax...well, he really lost it at the end."

"Jax Teller took after his mother and stepfather. The apple didn't fall far with that one. I'd call you an eejit for sticking by the club but...well, I know he persuasive Filip Telford can be."

"Can't say no to him. Never could. Couldn't say no to the club either. Guess that's why it all turned to shit."

"Hmm."

"So, how old is he? The prospect? Kerrianne's only 16."

Juice has a tendency to change the subject when he feels he's becoming the focus. It's something he's perfected along the way when too many questions were thrown at him and too many behaviours analysed down to nothing. His avoidance techniques are pretty effective for the most part.

He hopes they'll be effective here and now.

"He's not 18 yet. They start 'em young here. No pussyfooting around. Kids are expected to be men from an early age. Two of Kerri's friends have got kids already."

"Two of them? Seriously?"

"Yeah, one's newborn, the other's nearly a year old. I wouldn't tell her father but I've had her on the pill for the last twelve months just in case. The last thing she needs is that. I might be a Catholic woman but my girl comes before my God. She certainly comes before any club or cause loyalties."

She's not directly aiming an accusation but still, Juice feels defensive. He still feels protective because Chibs is not a bad man. He is a man who had a life he wanted to share with a woman and child who wanted no part of it.

He swears to this day he'd be dead if he'd stayed in Ireland.

Juice doesn't doubt it, not when he looks at those scars on his face.

Ugly.

Beautiful.

"He never knew how bad it was, Fiona. If he'd known -"

" - I know. He'd have come. I can't blame him. He's not clairvoyant. I just didn't want to worry him, thought I could deal with it myself. He had enough going on already."

Juice feels that deep, hard stab of shame as he processes that. Chibs had enough going on with the club, enough going on with him. He had enough going on talking him through his screaming nightmares and coaxing him out of his absent spells. The thought burdens him and it must reflect in his face because here she is, this troubled woman, comforting him.

There's an irony in there somewhere.

"It's not your fault, Juice. You needed him more."

"She's his daughter."

"And you're like a son to him."

The common sentiment causes a mental shift that's as uncomfortable now as it's always been. He's no son to Chibs, never was. The thought of being seen in such a way sits so wrong in Juice's mind it dislodges all else because he and Chibs are sleeping together and that kind of thing isn't a fetish he wishes to partake.

Still, he says nothing. He locks it inside.

They're brothers in bikes and cash, nothing more.

"I lit a candle for you. Said a prayer to St Christopher. I thought it might help."

"Patron Saint of lost things?"

"It was that or Saint Jude but I didn't want to think of you as a lost cause. I'd say you were pretty lost, weren't you?"

As far as simple synopses go, it's pretty fitting.

"Yeah," he says. "I guess I was. Thank you."

She smiles, and there's no Irish bitch in her at all.

"I'm glad you found your way back."

"Me too "

(*)

"That's everything," Chibs says as he dumps more bags in the living room. He looks around, taking everything in, before resting his eyes on Fiona and then on Juice.

He loves these two people in front of him in many of the same ways yet so very, very different ways, too. Years back, he pictured a future with this fierce, beautiful and intelligent woman, loved for all her faults and all her insecurities.

Now, he can't imagine anything but the fragile-strong kid that stands next to her, hands in pockets, bottom lip trapped boyishly between his teeth as he contemplates what might be expected of him. He shifts from foot to foot. It's one of his tells. He'll opt for a way out, just like he always does.

"I'll, uh, I'll give you some time to talk. I'll just take a nap if it's okay. The gnarly journey wiped me out."

"Sure, love. Last door on the left."

The hesitant look on Juice's face stirs something in Chibs because he's not used to sleeping alone any more and the thought of denying him again is something that aches in his bones and plays with his head. 

Juice smiles passively before excusing himself.

He's letting Chibs know he's fine. 

"I'll see you both later."

"Sleep well."

Fiona watches him go. There's the side Juice brings out in women, all poorly hidden concern and naturally cultivated endearment.

"He's changed," she says, because she knew the funny kid and Juice isn't a clown any more, never will be. "Seems quieter. Jumpier than a Jack in the Box. Positioned himself near the door like he thought someone was going to jump him. I've seen that kind of carry on before. He was never like that."

"Aye. It's to be expected, with what he went through."

"He looks up to you. I can see it in his eyes. For the love of Mary, Filip, don't fuck that up."

He won't. He'd die a thousand deaths before he'd do that.

"What's all this?"

She eyes the bags. Designer clothes, outlet bought but still better than anything her friends will have. He had to guess her size because she's not a child and she's growing like a leek. She's got her mother’s curves and her father's height.

Jimmy wasn't kidding when he called her a budding beauty.

"You know me. Trying to buy her love."

"I'd love to tell you she appreciates it but she doesn't appreciate much these days."

Chibs has a beautiful memory of his daughter dating back to her first months. Her first word wasn't Da or Ma like most little ones, calling out for the parent most twisted around their tiny fingers.

Her first word sounded distinctly like "please".

('How did a pair of rowdy bastards like us have a child that was born polite?')

He tries to pair this ungrateful tearaway with the pious child he thought she was.

He can't.

"Why didn't you tell me, Fi?"

"I didn't want to burden you with it. I deal with my problems myself. She's always been my problem."

"And now you can't deal with her you call on me. That right?"

Sometimes, Chibs feels resentful towards Fiona, a woman who stopped sharing the beautiful landmarks and only handed out the bad. It always felt like punishment to him.

He knows he deserves it; that she doesn't deserve his bitterness.Sometimes he just can't help it.

"I don't want to argue about this, Filip."

"You asked me to let another man bring up my kid and that went wrong. All of a sudden I'm called on for insight? Why now?"

The way she throws her hands into the air Chibs can see she’s giving up. He knows that’s his fault. Sometimes he feels like everything that went wrong in this woman’s life is his fault. 

Then he remembers he gave her a chance and she chose not to take it. 

"You know what? This is why we didn't work out. This. You're too fucking proud. Too fucking stoic to own your mistakes."

It could be how shattered she sounds that brings forth his sympathy and self-awareness. He's never seen her anything but pristine. Even when he left, she didn't shed a tear. She stood tall, brave, and maybe she fell apart afterwards but she never, ever let him see it because she had her pride and her pride was worth more than all the money in the country.

She's letting him see it now, her pain, and it stifles him.

"I'm sorry. Look, I'm sorry, Fi, alright? This is all just...a lot to take in."

"I know. I'm sorry, too. It’s just hard for me, y’know? Seein’ you like this and knowin’ that no matter what I’ve done for that girl it’ll be you she runs to. But, I look at you, Filip, and I all I see is tiredness. Old age. You’re old, Filip, did you realise?"

He did. 

He notices every time he looks in the mirror and there’s a little bit more grey around his temples; when he realises he’s moving from salt and pepper to just plain silver. 

He knows why. 

"Juice and me, we've been through a lot. He's still on shaky ground. It's got me all unravelled. I don't know my arse from my elbow."

"Is that why you brought him?"

This feels like make or break. He could lay it all out for her here and now, could rip off the plaster while it's raw already. He could tell her what ‘this’ is, what he and Juice are to each other. He could make it clear from the get-go that there’s more to them than this father and son she thinks she sees. 

Seeing her face he opts for safety because maybe she's got enough on her plate at the minute than having to deal with that on top.

"He's not good on his own. He's not like you."

"I was never good on my own either. I think the state of our daughter is testimony to that."

It's a sad and simple truth. She didn't excel, nor did she succeed.

She endured.

"When will she be home?"

"Home? Oh, she doesn't come home any more. She lives at the clubhouse. His mother kicked him out when she found out he was running with the MC. Maureen's been treating him like the son she never had. She's with Seamus now. That woman can't keep her legs closed. A real hankering for Presidents, she’s got. I get the impression she comes with the gavel."

"I see."

“Dirty old whore, she is.”

Fiona is never sheepish. She's bold and assured, a real alpha woman with her back straight and her eyes firm.

She falters now.

"Kerri and I, we went at it a few days ago. Barred from the clubhouse as of now, I am."

"What happened?"

"I'd had enough. I went over there with the intention of taking our daughter and dragging her home where she belongs. She takes after you in so many ways. If she doesn't want to do something nothing in the world will make her."

Again, she indicates that thick bruise.

"She got me twice in the face, the little cow. She knows how to take care of herself, that girl."

"Christ. Her own fucking mother. I can't get over that."

"I slapped that smirk off her face, Filip. No girl treats her mother like that. I've never raised a hand to her in my life, but that? That’s unacceptable."

"Right you are. There's such a thing as going too far."

"Well, Maureen didn't see it that way. I swear, Trinity never saw a day's discipline in her whole life. I'm not one to smack my child, never was, but that was something else. She’s not a baby anymore, Filip. I don’t like what she’s turning into."

It was more than disobedience. That was more than a lack of respect. That was crossing a boundary and pissing on the sacred sanctity that is a child's bond with its mother. Fiona's family are big on that.

For Kerrianne to do what she did, that was inexcusable.

"What did she do? Maureen?"

"Fell for our girl's tears and threw me out of the front gates. Told me if she saw me anywhere near the place she'd put a bullet in me. Said she'd protect Kerri like she'd birthed her herself."

"That doesn't sound like her."

“Aye, well, things change. So do people.”

She was always dead-against violence, a real Mother Theresa. She'd go off if one of her own was threatened but Kerrianne isn't one of her own.

"She wears a pretty mask. Keith dying did something to her. She always played the doting mother hen like she was born for it. She's still doing it now. I swear, Filip, the thought of another woman calling shots for my child..."

She swallows hard.

Chibs feels almost vindicated.

"I'm sorry I put you through that with Jimmy. I know you gave me the option to go with you. It just…at the time I was just too tied to this place to leave."

"And now?"

She smiles wistfully. It's a smile for what might've been, could've been.

They both know how beautiful hindsight really is.

"You think they'd let me in with my criminal history? We can't all be given a free pass because of who our daddy is and we're not married anymore, you and me. I wouldn’t get past the first gate."

"I guess not."

Chibs was granted entry because of his parents and grandparents. Citizenship via acquisition. His old man was born in the US, migrated back at the age of six. He gave his son the best of both worlds.

Chibs wanted to give his daughter the same, still wants to give her the same.

He's still hoping it's not too late for that.

(*)

It feels like years ago, two teenagers creeping around behind parents backs, star crossed lovers dodging obstacles just to be together.

When Chibs comes up behind Juice in that paisley patterned single bed it feels like the biggest crime there is.

"You awake?" he whispers, pulling the younger man closer. Chibs' joints aren't what they once were so the art of manoeuvring himself into position isn't as easy as it should be.

He's rewarded for his efforts by a contented sigh.

"Can't keep my eyes open. So tired."

"No stamina."

"Fuck you. Long flight. Took a couple Ambien."

"Oh, you did?"

He smiles. Chibs can't see it but he can hear it in Juice's voice. He lives for that sound.

"Flying sucks, man."

"After all the aggro you gave me? Cheeky bastard."

"Yeah. You love me, though."

"Aye I do."

He feels Juice's warmth. He always runs hot, almost fever hot. He says it's the Hispanic in him. So much chilli in his favourite foods, so much tan in his skin.

He kisses back of Juice's neck, tastes it.

He rests there, sighs against him.

"Sorry about your kid, Chibby."

"Me too."

"Fiona thinks I might be able to help."

"I don't think you could hurt."

“Really?”

“Really. You’re a good lad. Good head on your shoulders. Good heart.”

He growls, as he bites into Juice’s shoulder hard enough to leave a mark but not a bruise.

“Good fuck.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Aye.”

They stay like that for a little while. Just a while, so as not to arouse suspicion. Just still. Just quiet and close.

"We're not coming clean, are we?" Juice says. "Not the time, not the place."

"I'm sorry. I wanted to. I'm sick of dishonesty. It’s just…the timing’s bad, Juicy. I don’t know if they could take it at the minute."

"It's okay. I can be your dirty little secret a little bit longer."

"You're a real gem, Ortiz. Anyone ever tell you that?"

"Not enough people. Now, get lost and let me sleep. You know how I get when I'm tired."

Still amazing, Chibs thinks. Still my boy.

He wonders when he got so fucking sentimental.

"Sleep. We'll figure something out when you wake up."

"We always do."

"Yeah, we always do."


	3. Chapter 3

## Chapter 3 – Wayward Girl

Juice always feels strange falling asleep in someone else’s house, misplaced and unnatural and at times, naturally unwelcome. He’s never been able to explain it. He has often wondered if it came from years of flitting between foster homes, always getting the impression that the family with which he had been placed were not doing it out of love but out of obligation.

How many beds has he slept in? How many rooms has he called his own, albeit temporarily? He can't count. Whenever he settled in a place it was inevitably taken from him.

He just learned not to settle.

Now, home for Juice is key. It’s prime. It’s necessity. Living such a nomadic childhood has placed huge emphasis on the need to belong, both as part of a family and part of an environment. He’d rather lose his hand than his home, would rather lose his leg than his family because those things are placed so high up on his life-pedestal that nothing could ever be more important to him.

Being here in Fiona’s home and knowing the history she has with Chibs is something that sits very strangely with Juice. He doesn’t want to think of her as competition but this is a woman Chibs married; a human being he loved so much he came together with her and created a lifelong legacy that is a child. He speaks of her fondly even now, talks of how beautiful she is and was, how good a mother she remains to be.

He’s spoken of his regrets; how he’d turn back time if he could so as to salvage something of the wreckage that became of them.

Juice has always thought that the only person who could take Chibs away from him was Fiona and, as selfish as it has always felt to him, he’d been happy that she was thousands of miles away, ergo not in a position to do so. Now he’s under her roof and Chibs, _his_ Chibs, is embroiled in a deeply emotional scenario that only the two of them could possibly share.

It scares him.

It’s a very wary house, he feels, the air tinged with caution and restraint. Even the dog seems wary, keeping his distance in the first instance as if weighing up those that cross its threshold. It’s only when an unspoken test has been passed that he begins to wag his tail.

The truth is, Juice has always preferred dogs to people. You always know where you stand with a dog. There are no pretences, no falsities or trickery. People say the love of a dog is unconditional but maybe that's not true. A dog will follow his master to the edge of the Earth if his master is good to him and, though he loves enough to forgive, his respect must be earned. Dogs? They have the right idea.

Maybe they should all learn from dogs.

He woke up ten minutes ago disorientated and alone with his own plaintive whimpering dragging him out of sleep. It was a sound that wouldn’t have been misplaced on a kicked animal. He had felt his panic start to rise before he fully came into awareness. The room had been pitch black and his first cognizant thought had been that it wasn’t home. That and that alone had been all he could focus on and until he came to his senses he had been frozen stiff. He kicked himself when he finally realised where he was, internally scolded the dependent child he had become through circumstances that were partly of his own making. Though, perhaps he’s being harsh.

Maybe he’s not dependent, per se, but that brief period of twilight between awake and asleep is his most difficult time. That’s when Tully is fresh. That’s when the scent of lavender is ripe in his memory, the firm feel of too-large hands a bruising presence in the darkness. Juice wonders if there will ever be a time when that man, dead as he is, is not the first thought he has upon awakening, a great looming presence leaning in to offer a kiss to bring him ‘round. Juice would find himself wanting to die rather than to be awoken like some screwed up sleeping beauty. There was an irony in there somewhere. Tully, with his black hair, with his Snow White skin, with his minions running behind him like poisoned dwarves...

At times, rare times, he wakes up screaming, blind pain and post-traumatic stress holding him in their talons until Chibs comes to set him free. He hopes that doesn't happen here. The last thing any of them need is a grown man screaming at the monsters that lurk under the bed and deep in the closet space.

Here, now, he’s struck with a physical problem, an undeniable reaction to the adrenaline that has piqued within him. Juice is insatiable first thing, part morning glory part just wanting to paint over his mental bruises with something beautiful. He wonders if it will always be that way. He knows that Chibs knows; knows that when Chibs hands fall on his body it's because he wants to take away as much as he wants to give. He knows that when Chibs looks at him sometimes he sees a work in progress; an engine he needs to caress to make it work.

He hopes it isn't always that way.

There’s a nostalgic feel to this visit for Juice, though, a kind of life re-wind to another place and another time when he lived another life.

There are net curtains on the windows and outside the sky is grey. The single bed feels strangely disproportionate to him, reminds him of the beds he used to sleep in when he visited his mother’s friend Mary in Boston back when he was a kid. He was small for his age but even still, the space felt tight. He had to share with Mary’s son Marco who wet the bed on bad days and wriggled like an earthworm at the best of times. It was the only time he ever left Queens before his mother died and, though he professed to hate the visits he looked forward to getting on the bus with his backpack full of Transformers, with his Spiderman pyjamas and his fruit box sticking out the side.

Those were the days.

Marco thought he was strange, an odd kid, though soon came to realise that Juice brought good toys and he was valuable to him for that very reason. Even at a young age, Juice was valued for what he could give, not who he was. Mary thought he was a beautiful boy but warned his mother he’d be trouble when he was older, an oracle in the making and a predictor of things to come. Both she and Marco loved his sister because everyone loved his sister back in the day. Everyone loved her bright smile and her beautiful eyes, their mother’s eyes.

People still think Juice is a strange, beautiful boy. They still see trouble in his future.

It’s very difficult to love his sister nowadays.

It’s different here but somehow it’s the same. The houses are more spaced out, not like the sardines that formed his old street in Queens and Mary’s place in an area that wasn’t rough but wasn’t smooth either. There’s a patchwork feel to this place just like there was at Mary’s and it regresses him in ways he never anticipated. Mary was a single mother with fleeting boyfriends too and as he got older, Marco became the very image of his absent father. much to her sadness.

Maybe that’s what Kerrianne is doing here.

Maybe she’s channelling the dad she never really knew as a way of hurting the mother who won’t give her want she wants because she’s too intent on giving her what she _needs_.

Kids don't understand what love is, sometimes.

(*)

He’s not the same person as he was. That’s what he thinks, _knows_ , when he stands in the doorway, hands in his pockets, head ducked like a bashful teenager. He raises a hand and waves hello, sheepish where he wasn't before and he knows Fiona thinks it when she sees him.

She wonders who he is, this stranger wearing Juice Ortiz' face.

Fiona is used to the _other_ Juice, the one that didn’t betray his brothers, the one that wasn’t beaten and outcast and raped in a prison of his own making. She’s used to the cocky little shit that beat her at cards and board games and teased her daughter mercilessly about the screensaver on her phone and her common choice of music.

She’s used to the Juice that charmed every girl he saw, unwitting as it was, the kid whose smile could captivate the entire room.

This Juice is shy; reticent, almost. He doesn't know when that happened, possibly somewhere between sitting before Jax with his wrists in cuffs and his world in tatters and and falling asleep in Chibs' bed. Juice would like to say she’d understand because she’s been there but that’s just a little too literal for his liking. Even as she smiles at him he feels himself caving in a little.

“You look like you slept well.”

He scratches absently at the back of his neck. Chibs would say he could be read like a top-shelf magazine.

('How are you so good at cards when you're so fucking obvious?')

“Yeah…uh, yeah, I did. Thank you.”

"Good. I kept the dog in. The little shit yaps like it's life depends in it when I throw it out. Didn't think you'd appreciate that."

"Nah, I like dogs."

"He sleeps like the dead - when he actually sleeps, that if. Isn't that right?"

"Uh, yeah."

Neither of them miss the quick look that flashes across Fiona's face as she asks herself how Chibs knows such a thing.Maybe it's a subconscious question because she doesn't raise anything verbally. She doesn't seem to acknowledge it past a quick flash and glance. Juice looks at his feet then up past his lashes as if waiting for invitation because this looks like a private matter and he doesn’t want to cross that threshold. They’re a family unit now. They've lapsed back into the role of parents like nothing had ever gone between them because this involves the one precious thing they share and will always share.

Juice finds that hard to relate to.

Family units were never his thing.

“Come in. Sit down. You're making me nervous standing there like that.”

“I could, uh...I could come back. If you’re talking, I mean.”

“Get your arse in here, Juicy boy. Don’t be daft.”

It's Fiona he looks to for some kind of sign that he's not welcome. Upon seeing none, he proceeds.

They seem strangely at ease, like nothing has changed, and it puts him in mind of how it was when Abel went missing; how they'd got off that plane and arrived at the clubhouse and it was if there was no missing child; no little boy in danger of being lost forever. His first thought had been for Jax. How could a father be so relaxed, he had thought? How could he be so willing to put aside the search for his son on the say-so of an old priest when he would’ve had him in the ground, had he beenat home? Juice had thought that, had it been _his_ child that was missing, he’d have been turning over every stone on this green fucking island to find him. If it had been Theo, that priest would've been strung up, inquisition style, until he spat it out.

Jax did none of that. He partied. He fought. He drank and he laughed. It didn’t feel right, but who was Juice to question it? He had no child. He had no family. Who was he to pass judgement?

Maybe this is just the way.

He looks at the clock on the wall. Two hours have passed, which is strange because he doesn’t feel rested at all.

Maybe it’s because he was alone.

“Sorry. I must’ve been more tired than I thought.”

More tired or more doped up, that would be the question. Juice knows mixing meds with alcohol hadn’t been such a good idea but he'd been full of nervous energy. Things are so vastly different, now that they’re returning, and he doesn’t know how people are going to take him. Before, they saw a brother. Will they see him as something else now? A victim? A betrayer? Will they look at him and see Gemma's right-hand man? Will they see Tully's 'sweetheart'?

Will they see Chibs' next big mistake?

(‘You overthink things too much, Juice. It’s something you need to work on.’)

He clears his throat.

“You want a cup of tea, son?”

“No. No, thank you, Fiona.”

"You sure? I could put the kettle on."

"I'm all good."

She's been crying. Juice hadn't noticed it at first, not through the smile, but it makes sense. His gut clenches. He imagines her sobbing her heart out and Chibs, a man who is often torn between embracing hurt and shunning it, coaxing the hurt away.

He smiles in an attempt to offer comfort, though he scrambles for purchase on himself.

"What's going on? Did you guys figure something out?"

"Fi called one of the prospects. Kerri's not there at the minute but I was waiting for you to get up so we can head over. Fiona's not coming."

"How come?"

She shrugs, but her fists are clenched and her jaw is set. She’s smiling through her pain and frustration. It’s admirable. It’s also sad.

"I'd only set the wee cow off. Besides, I'm not welcome."

"But, you're her mom. She's sixteen."

"Yeah, well, someone seems to have taken over that role for the time being."

"That's...not good."

"You're damn right it isn't. I don't know who she thinks she is."

Fiona's rage is tangible. It seeps into the walls and spills out into the air. It can be felt. Tasted. It's a corporeal entity of her own making and it's startling in the same way it was startling coming from Gemma, another beautiful lioness willing to scratch eyes out and tear out throats for the love of her kid.

"Who is she to tell me how to bring my own daughter up? Trin's hardly a poster child for decorum."

"Fiona -"

Chibs' voice holds gentle warning. Juice knows it well. It's the swell before a storm, the flashing light that hits before a migraine. He knows to adhere to it. So, it seems, does Fiona.

"Look, it's grand. I'm not gonna show you up, but if she even looks at me crooked -"

"I know. Don't worry, alright? I'll bring her back."

He says it like it's a promise. Juice fears for that because a broken promise to a mother is just about the biggest sin there can be.

Chibs doesn’t need any more strikes against.

(*)

"She's fading away out here, Juicy Boy. Breaks my heart to see what's become of her. That woman in there? She would've pissed on all of us in terms of toughness. Look at her now."

She's always been described as a force to be reckoned with. Hard as nails, as vicious and clever as a hiding snake. No worry, they'd say of Fiona Larkin, that bitch could hold off a fucking army.

Life just got in the way.

Juice looks at Chibs, looks beyond the bravado and past the walls he erects around himself and his family.

He sees only distress.

"She could come back with us, if that's what you think would help."

"She can't. Criminal convictions. Terrorist connections. She'd never get through, long-term, and she wouldn't want to be there as an illegal. On paper, she's a threat to national security."

On paper, they _all_ are. Gun running. Drugs running. Ties with known criminal organisations. RICO investigations.

They always found a way.

"I could get her a clean passport if that's what she wants. Papers, pictures, that kind of stuff. I know a guy. "

Miguel, up in Chicago. An old friend from his crew days. He'd tried to get to him when he was on the run but he'd fallen off the face of the Earth. He'd been in rehab, three months getting off heroin and back on the road again. He's out, now. He's as clean as he could possibly be which isn't really that clean at all.

Chibs looks at him in disbelief.

"Christ. How many guys do you know? Your little black book of felons is as thick as my cock."

Juice shrugs. He knows a lot of people. He just wouldn't call them friends.

"The club took me on as comms guy. I got contacts. Tried to get a hold of them before I went to the Mayans but they were offline. They're back on now. My guy Miguel? He can get anything."

"Would it clear immigration, no questions asked?"

"Would I suggest it if I thought it wouldn't?"

This is an out. This is an escape clause; a gift Juice could offer the one woman who could possibly take Chibs from him, but he's weighed up the positives and negatives and angel on his shoulder shouted the devil down.

He must be a good person.

"I know you want your daughter close. She won't come without her mother."

She may claim to hate her mother but Juice could feel the bond they had. It made him think of his own mother and how she was with him and his sister. It made him yearn for how it used to be, a poignant reminder of the biggest loss in his life.

Chibs nods his head.

"I'll talk to her. She wants out. She's trying to make an honest living but she's got too much history. "

"I know. We can all relate to that."

The club has fought so hard to step away from violent crime. It's difficult to tear away when it's become so ingrained that the first instinct is always to fight.

Chibs places his hands on the wall in front of him and looks to the ground. It's his calming ritual. It's his he grounds and centres himself. He looks up, stormy eyes meeting Juice's, and he just looks spent. Conflicted.

"I don't want this life for my kid, Juicy. If I can get her out - "

"- it'll be good, Chibby." Trust me."

Trust. Hard earned, easy lost.

Juice lost Chibs' trust once. He won't lose it again.

"With my life, brother."

Those words are music to his ears.

(*)

When Juice looks upon Kerrianne again his heart sinks because he sees his sister in her dark eyes and it takes him back. It takes him back to a time when that sweet, intelligent girl hit that roadblock and couldn't seem to get up. Even before she has seen them he can sense the change in her. It's not a front. It just...is.

He couldn't save his sister. That girl is long gone. He's keeping a close eye on her now she's got her own child but he knows she died with their mother.

Chibs' girl doesn't need to follow that path.

She's leaning against a wall outside the main club building. One foot rests against, the other stretched outward. She looks to be sending a message on her phone, an extension of any teenage hand these days, and from the look on her face it's not a happy message. She looks frustrated as her fingers rapidly move across the small screen and even from far away her gnawed lip can be seen disappearing between her teeth.

She's dressed like a cold-weather crow eater and that's something that sits wrong with both of them.

She's not a little girl any more.

"Kerrianne!"

Chibs calls his daughters name in a tone that's both authoritative and hopeful at once. Juice knows the flavours of Chibs' voice. He hears the subtleties and nuances that those unversed might miss.

He loves the very thought of him.

It's clear all hope is not lost by the look that forms on Kerri's beautiful, troubled face the minute she sees her father. It's the look of a person whose prayers have finally been answered; relief, accompanied by a generous helping of love. It's only there for a second. Both Juice and Chibs see it. Then it's gone, a mere ghost of an expression replaced by caution and distemper and it's almost like it was never there at all. The betrayal kicks it into touch.

It's enough, though.

It's enough to latch onto, just for now.

"What are you doing here?" she says, arms folded across her chest in a gesture of standoffishness. "Didn't Mam tell you it's off?"

"She didn't, no."

"Sorry about that," she says, though she's not sorry at all. Sarcasm bleeds into her words and spills out of her mouth like she's haemorrhaging it. "It's not like you were gettin' on a bus from Derry or something. That stupid bitch only thinks about herself."

She doesn't mean it. These are just words. Sill, they're words Chibs won't stand for. Honour thy mother. That means the world.

"That's your mother you're taking about."

"So?"

"So, have a bit of respect."

"Respect is earned, Filip. You of all people should know that."

"Oh, so I'm Filip now?"

"Well, you're certainly not dad, are you?"

Chibs' restraint is remarkable. Juice has been on the receiving end of this man's disappointment on more than one occasion and he knows the girl is walking a fine line. He has a tell, though, a twitch in his jaw that serves as a warning sign, like the swish of a tail or the arch of a back. His daughter doesn't know him well enough to see it.

Juice sees it. He flashes her a look that pleads for calm but he doesn't know if she sees it or not. She seems to back off though, sensing she's not going to get anywhere if she follows this track.

"Whatever. I asked you what you were doing here. I thought you would've fucked off the minute you heard I was a problem child. They're not here, just so you know. The MC. Only the prospects are here and you'd get more sense out of my dog than these tossers."

"I'm not here on club business, Kerri. I can see the lads later. I'm here for you."

That touches a nerve. She stands up straight and tall. When did she get so tall? When did she get so strong?

When did she become as fierce as her mother?

"For me? For _me_? Aren't I honoured? You've taken time out of your busy schedule for your own daughter. How amazing are you?"

"I said I'd come."

"And you thought I believed you? Come on."

It's anger. Hurt. Juice knows it. Chibs knows it too. It's the passive aggressive sorrow of a girl who was rejected and who is hitting out in the only way she knows how. Juice understands only too well how paternal rejection feels. He's got the date of his own father's rejection tattooed on his head, a painful reminder that a positive pregnancy test was all it took for him to split because he didn't want another child; couldn't cut into his gambling funds to pay for one. He never met his dad because his dad didn't think him worth knowing. His sister used to tell him he was better off; that it's bullshit when people say it's better to have had and lost than to never have had before.

('You don't know what you're missing if you've never had it.')

Kerri had a father, then she didn't. She had another father, then she didn't. Now, what does she have? A farmer. A dog. A house in the suburbs with a mother who still grieves for the life she once had and hated because she doesn't know what else to be.

What kind of life is that?

"You might as well go home, Filip. I'm not going back. Me and Aidan are happy here."

"Are you?"

It's Juice that asks the question. It's firm but gentle. It's probing but compassionate.

"Does he really make you happy, sweetheart?"

And, just like that, a switch is flipped. Kerrianne turns her attention directly to Juice and she smiles. She looks so much older than her years and she's that disturbing dichotomy of old before her time yet still so very, very young.

She's coquettish. Lascivious.

She's sexual where she shouldn't be.

"I make _him_ happy."

She places a hand on his chest and it's now he sees how dilated her pupils are. He doesn't know what's fuelling her bit it's certainly not natural. Speed, maybe. Ecstasy. Or, maybe it’s just sheer adrenaline.

"Why are you asking, Juice? Think you can make me happier? Think I can make _you_ happy?"

She moves closer. This is a show. This is a challenge. This is a girl out of control and it stuns Chibs silent. She keeps looking at her father as if daring him to stop her.

“I’m old enough, now.”

"Jesus," Juice says, as he pushes her away. He feels like his thread has been cut. He probably looks terrified, but that doesn’t matter. Not here. Not now. "Are you _serious_?"

"You could've been in Westlife with that haircut. Fucking 1-Direction. Look at you."

  _"Kerri!"_

She stops, her body language that of a person who has been stopped before they got started and who resents the man that got in her way.

"What, Da? _What?_ ”

"Behave yourself."

"Oh, fuck off. You don't get to roll up here and tell me that to do."

If this is a sign of just how she’s been it’s a worrying one, one which shows Fiona’s had every reason to be concerned.

This is a tragedy waiting to happen.

She smiles at Juice, whose stomach sinks when he sees it because that's not what he remembers of her. None of this is.

“Not a little girl now, am I?"

But, she is. That's the thing. She _is_ a little girl by way of maturity and this reckless behaviour only solidifies that fact.

"You don't even know what you're doing."

"Don't I? You'd be surprised. I'm not a good Catholic girl any more. Don't worry, though. I'm on the pill. I wouldn't be thick enough to bring a kid into all this shite."

Her voice cracks on her last word and it's the biggest cry for help imaginable. She looks at Juice again, really looks at him. He can see a thousand things in her eyes, none of which say that she is what she tries to paint herself as, but he knows the pride of youth; the defiance of adolescence. He'd have argued the sky was yellow and fought to the death about it when he was this age.

"This is where I belong. You might say it's in my blood. Ma's a terrorist turned housewife and Da's a criminal and a scumbag. Aidan's better than that. He's better than all of that. He takes care of me."

"That right?"

"I couldn't be happier."

That there are tears in her eyes when she says those words doesn't seem to register with her.

It's a sobering thing.

Her arms go from folded in defiance to grasping at themselves protectively. Her mouth twists, just like her father does. Juice sees so much of him in her. So much.

When he steps towards her she doesn’t step back.

"Seems like a blast, doesn't it? Club life. So fucking exciting. He buys you shit, right? Beer. Vodka. Probably takes you out on his bike, too. But, Kerri, you're nobody's old lady. Not at sixteen. Not with a Mom who loves you and a Dad who's cut off his own hand to have you with him."

"Yeah, right."

"You think I'm kidding? You don't know how lucky you are."

 "Lucky? You must be joking."

"No. No, I'm not. I would've killed to have a mom at your age. Especially one like yours who would fucking die for you."

For a second, it looks like he's got through. There are chinks in this armour that are plain to see. This is a girl who just wants someone to hold her hand, to show her the way. This is a girl so desperate for guidance and stability she'll look for it at a motorcycle club.

She's Juice all over.

"You don't know me," she says, her voice little more than a sneer, but she's faltering. " _Neither_ of you do."

"Maybe not," Chibs whispers, "but, darlin', I want to. It's all I've ever wanted. I love you, and so does your Mammy, but what you're doing here? It's gonna screw your life up, and if I have to travel another few thousand miles to stop that from happening? I'll do that."

"So noble."

"No. Not noble. I know I did you wrong. But, let me make that right. Come home. Come and see your Mam, tell her you're sorry."

"I'm not sorry."

"Tell her you love her."

"I don't love her."

"Aye, you do. You know you do."

When she tells him again to fuck off it should feel like failure. It should feel like rejection. It should anger and frustrate.

It doesn't.

It feels almost justified, at least to Juice. Strong feelings are better than no feelings at all. Anger is better than indifference.

"I love you, Kerrianne. Just remember that."

For a moment hung in time she stops, as if contemplating those words; as if wanting to break free the wall she's erected.

Then the pride overtakes again and she waltzes away, doesn't look back in love or anger.

"Well, _that_ went well."

"Give her an hour. Two, tops. I guarantee she'll be back home."

"You think?"

Juice puts his hand on Chibs’ arm and holds it there. He looks into his eyes, engaging, imploring. He’s trying to reach the part of him that negativity hasn’t shrouded when he tells him how much that girl feels for him.

He needs to hear it.

"She loves you to death. She wouldn't be this pissed off if she didn't."

"Did you miss the scathing sarcasm?"

"Ignore the words. I could see it in her eyes. She'll go off and sulk for a while, probably call you all the assholes and shitstains she can think of, then she'll come back with her tail between her legs and act like it was all her own idea."

He knows because it’s what he would’ve done. It’s how he would’ve thought, placed in the same situation.

He knows more than he should about the hurt abandonment causes.

"Ah, when did you become the connoisseur of adolescent angst, Ortiz?"

"I grew up in foster homes, Chibby. This is like second nature to me."

He can see how his words affect Chibs, like his sad little history is something that troubles him. As is customary, he shrugs it off because Juice has always shrugged off the sting of his own past, focusing instead on the lives of others.

He cares about Chibs’ life because he is a part of it. Maybe there’s something self-seeking in that.

"She just needs a little time is all"

"She needs a good hiding, is what she needs. Christ forgive me for saying it but I thought she was going to show you her tits for a minute there."

Juice is only grateful she didn’t.

There would be no turning back from that.

"Look, she's pushing it. Trying to get a rise. I used to do it all the time. You know why? ‘Cause negative attention is better than no attention at all. I’d rather be called a shithead and smacked around than turfed out like a gutter rat.”

It’s the story of his life, the sad fact of his warped little universe. He’d take a kick rather than a turned back, an insult rather than a painful silence.

There’s a reason why he let Chibs push him around the way he used to. That’s it.

Chibs frowns as he regards him, a he lets that sink in.

“That explains a lot, Juicy Boy. It really does.”

“Yeah.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick thanks to anyone who commented/kudos'd. This really helpful :)

Chapter 4 - Intervention

It's getting late when a Juice feels the familiar tremble. Jet-lag hits hard, an erase and rewind that has always left Juice feeling frayed and drowsy. It's different now. There's more to it. 

Juice has a schedule. He has routine. It's all that's kept him in line these past months and to jerk it around, even by hours, is a real hardship for him. He's learned that controlling the little things and keeping those in order are a triumph that helps keep the bigger things in check. It's a common tactic, that much he knows.

He never thought he'd be one of those needing to implement it.

Kerri is still not back and all efforts to contact her have led to that same droning woman churning out a message about the Vodafone answering service and how the person they are calling is unavailable. Emotionally unavailable, Juice would say, as well as physically.

He feels a little that way himself right now. Maybe it's tiredness getting to him. Maybe it's the time-shift.

He just doesn't feel right.

"You okay?" Chibs asks, and Juice is torn between loving him for sensing his anxiety and cursing him for noticing it because, shit, it must be fucking obvious.

"I'm sorry," he says, thumbing in the direction of the bedroom uncomfortably, "I gotta take my, uh..."

('Magic candy. Uppers, downers. Legal highs. Crazy pills.')

"...my meds. It's late."

His eyes flicker towards Fiona because he wants to give an explanation for his edginess but he's conscious of what she might think. 

"You go, Juicy. See you in a minute."

Chibs makes light to diffuse things, explains to Fiona that he is on a schedule. It's like having a child, he says, and when Juice tells him to go screw himself it's with an air of love and a brotherly teasing that never quite went away. Juice longs for the day when his life isn't mapped out by informal therapy and strictly timed pharmaceuticals.

He feels it's a long, long way away.

His heart stops briefly when he opens the bedroom door and sees clear movement in the darkness, hears that sharp intake of breath which indicates he's not alone. His first instinct is to reach for his gun but he's not carrying, not since they left the States, and it's a problem because the only thing he's armed with is his own fist and that's never really served him well.

('I've seen better punches coming from a four year old. Hand to hand isn't your strong point, Ortiz.')

He stands tall. He uncoils himself, hard and rigid, the quintessential cat with it's arched back. The unravelled snake. It's only when he sees the shadow of her hair that he comes back into himself, a halo of curl set against a face that was angelic once but is now dead-set in defiance. 

"Kerrianne -"

She springs to life, grabs him hard enough to bruise.

"Shh. Jesus. For fuck's sake, would you get in and shut the door."

"Wh-what are you -"

She huffs, impatient like her father, and with a strength that looks beyond her drags him further into the room before closing the door behind him and shutting them both inside.

"You're a right gobby bastard. They'll hear you."

It's not that Juice has a serious problem with enclosed spaces and locked doors. Not truly. It's just...he has a serious problem with enclosed spaces and locked doors and no matter how many times he tries to lie to himself about it, the irrational apprehension doesn't go away.

When a door locks, Tully springs to life, a ghost at his heels, a crow at a window that's painted shut. He can't escape it. He wonders if he ever will. 

"What are you doing in here?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

He leans against the door, grasping that handle unconsciously. He knows how nervous he must look. It reflects in her face. She's not subtle. Teenage girls rarely are. She's looking at him like he's crazy and as much as he's used to that it bothers him from her.

When he drops eye contact he notices the net curtains billowing against the open window. The air is cool and fresh and of a sudden he doesn't feel quite so trapped. Still, the thought of her likely scurrying up the wall just to avoid her parents seems otherworldly to Juice, like something that only happens in movies or in books. It's ridiculous.

"What?" she demands, and she doesn't look so amused any more. She looks angry. Affronted. It's the same look Chibs wears whenever someone questions his actions.

She has her father's eyes.

Her earrings catch the light. They're too big, bold and brash. They're something she's trying to be but can't be. They're Juice's tattoos. They're Jax Teller's booming voice.

"Kerri -"

"Spit it out if you've got something to say."

"You came in through the window? Seriously? There's a front door. You gotta have a key."

She shrugs defiantly, dismissively. All that's missing is a bubble of gum snapping against her lips to complete the picture of a careless teen who doesn't give a shit about the pain she causes.

"I didn't want to talk to either of them."

"I think they'd like to talk to you."

"Tough shit. I'll talk to them when I'm ready."

By the looks of it she's been in here awhile. On second glance, it would appear she's rifled through every bag in the room, the contents of which are splayed out all over the bed. Shaving foam. T-shirts. Motorcycle magazines to read on the plane and, of course, three small orange bottles containing chemical lifelines that Juice never wants anyone to see.

("You take your pills in private. Any reason why? You don't have to be ashamed.")

"You went through my stuff?" he asks, plaintively. "Why would you do that?"

She shrugs. She doesn't care. His quiet pleas don't wash with her. 

"For all I know, you're a member of fucking ISIS. I don't trust easily. Not any more."

That's something they share nowadays. A lack of trust. An inner dialogue that demands absolute vigilance against forces that might mean harm. Carefully, she picks up one of those bottles. Juice's heart catches in his chest because he doesn't want to explain himself to her, not here and not now.

He doesn't want to say anything to anyone. Not people who wouldn't understand.

"Fluoxetine," she says, eyeing the contents. His hand hesitantly reaches out to take the bottle from her before he sighs, realising the action is futile.

She's in.

She's forced her way past his shaky walls and set up camp on the other side.

"Ambien. Ativan."

"Yeah. I'm a walking pharmacy. It's all legal, I promise you."

"My mate's da takes this stuff. Prozac, isn't it?"

"Something like that."

She eyes him with something that wavers between amusement and curiosity. Juice hates that look. He's seen it before in other times, other places. It's a look Jax Teller used to give him when he was close to breaking and the words behind his cold blue eyes were always "let's see what he does."

"Her old fella's got a gambling problem. Blows a shit load on the greyhounds every week. Can't be bothered paying child support for her little brother Cillian. Her ma calls him all the names under the sun."

She shakes the orange bottle, watches as the tiny pills rattle around. Juice's lifeline. His saving grace. It seems disrespectful. He doesn't like that.

"Is this because of what happened to you?"

Panic, now. He shifts where he stands, one foot to the other, like there's a fire beneath him and he's trying to stop himself from burning up in it. Instinctively, his eyes move around the room searching for escape again. It's one of his things, now. He always needs to have it in sight should he need to get away.

He feels that crushing stab of embarrassment when he realises he's in the midst of a fight, flight, fawn reaction because of the scrutiny of a teenage girl.

"I heard them talking about it at the clubhouse. All the shite with Jax. What an arsehole he turned out to be, eh? Just goes to show."

"What...what did they talk about?"

She shrugs. His mouth goes dry, his cheeks burning with heat. He wants to know how deep his shame should sit.

"This and that. Just bits, mainly. How he had you go inside for him. Made you all kinds of promises. How he fucked you around because your old man's black. I know how that feels."

Of course she does. She's a mixed race girl in a predominantly white environment. She's been forever linked to a club that looks down on anyone who doesn't fit it's ideal. 

"They still call me the black kid. Telford's black daughter. The fact I'm half white doesn't seem to matter."

"Yeah. Sounds about right."

Maybe it's why she disarms; why her arms fall down to her sides, that bottle still rattling in her now-soft hand.

"Didn't peg him as a racist, though. He was nice to my face. I even fancied him a bit. Says a lot about my judgement of character."

From her take on things it becomes clear her preconceived notion favours Juice in whatever situation has been outlined to her. She has made no mention of Miles, no word of his multiple betrayals. She has not judged him. She has not mocked him. She has not spoken of Tully and, though he knows SAMBEL know what happened to him in there, there's high chance she doesn't.

His relief is tangible.

"Shit happened," he says, finally. "I'm working through it. Needing a little help, that's all."

"With pills, right? My ma tried working through things with pills last time Filip left. It didn't work very well. She was still a bitch."

Juice thinks of Fiona, black eyed and utterly defeated by her daughter's lack of respect, and the word 'bitch' doesn't fit. 

"Look, you shouldn't talk about her like that. It's...not good."

"She made her bed, Juice. She's not only lying in it, she's screwing an old man in it."

"Your mom and dad love you. That's all that matters."

"It's not, though, is it? Sometimes love just isn't enough. Isn't that how the shitty song goes?"

Isn't it? It's sad. That she doesn't appreciate what she has, it's a tragic thing. But then, what is her life but a series of scares and who are her family but a gaggle of terrorists and criminals?

What hope did she have?

"It's a start, Kerri."

"Yeah. Well. She prefers the farmer and he clearly loves you more."

"Me?"

"You. The club. The way he used to look at you like you're the one that came out of her, not me. Felt shit. He never looked at me like that."

Juice remembers the last time they were in Ireland. Fiona said something similar to him; that the man she loved and will always love had a special bond with him, that he may have looked at him as a surrogate for Kerri. A son in place of the daughter he couldn't be close to.

He wonders if she'd say the same thing now...

"Since she's been with that stinking twat she hasn't wanted to know me. I might as well be a bluebottle she's swatting out of the house. She always wants me gone. And, now that I've done what she wanted, all of a sudden I'm the ungrateful problem child who got into trouble and ran out? She can go and fuck herself."

Her palms face outward. She's pleading for understanding. That's what her body language says. She's laying it all out. Juice sighs. He reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder. He knows physical contact can act as a grounding force. It can pull a person back.

"Aren't you a little old for playing games?"

He wants to reach her where her family can't. He wants to make it better.

Her voice breaks.

"Probably, but she's all I have."

She's angry when she throws that him. She's also tearful. It makes sense, now. She's reaching the age where a lot of her friends are moving up, moving on. Having kids of their own, early or not.

She's looking at the only grounding force in her life, the only one who can help point her in the right direction, and she's not seeing her.

"Kerri," Juice says, softly, so softly, "you can't hold her back forever. She deserves to be happy."

"I know that. I know. But, don't I deserve that too? She made a fucking point of isolating me. For my safety, she said. Now she brings him into the house and all of a sudden I'm meant to be independent? I don't have anyone else. I'm only with him down at the clubhouse 'cause he makes me feel less alone. I thought she'd figure that out but she's too thick."

"So you're acting up to get her attention?"

She smiles bitterly. There's truth in that. Juice knows it. He knows the concept of making too much noise at night so someone would give him attention, behaving badly so that he would no longer he ignored.

"Pathetic, aren't I?" she says, and there's self-deprecation that sounds so familiar to Juice. She bends at that. She folds. "I wish we'd fucking moved when we had the chance. I was too attached to this shithole to even consider it. Can't think why, now."

"It was all you knew."

She laughs. It's a sad kind of laugh, one that's laced with regret.

"What kind of an idiot clings onto a life that's shitty just because it's familiar, eh?"

He smiles at that because isn't that just the story of his life? Isn't that his main ingredient?

"I could tell you a lot about that kind of idiot."

(*)

"He's been a long time."

Twenty-five minutes. Longer than expected. It's not unusual and Chibs, having sensed Juice's need for self-regulation, thinks better than to follow. Sometimes he likes to be close, so close that all he needs do is reach out and he'll find somebody. Other times, the other side of the Earth isn't space enough for him.

He never used to be that way.

It's just another way Jax Teller has changed him.

"He alright, Filip?"

"Aye, he does this sometimes. Takes himself off, has a little moment. Comes back better."

"Sounds like it's been hard."

"You're not wrong there. It's been hard going but we're in a good place at the minute. Juice. The club."

"And I throw a spanner in."

"Don't be a daft bint. I told you I'm always here, no matter what."

Fiona sips her coffee slowly. She leans across the breakfast bar and, despite everything, it's more relaxed than she's seemed in years. She seems happy, underneath it all. Settled.

There's a small smile that crosses her lips when Chibs mentions her partner, asking when he might be home. Not tonight, she says. He's staying at his sister's. Early start in the morning.

"He gets up at the crack of dawn. Didn't think you'd appreciate that."

"And, how does he feel about me being here?"

"You're her father."

It's an answer that's good as any; that says a lot about the man he is. He won't stand in the way. He won't kick up a fuss.

"Does he treat you right?" Chibs asks, because it's important he knows and, though he feels that irrational, misplaced stab of jealousy when he imagines another man touching the mother of his child, he wants it clear in his mind.

She smiles wistfully, the same young girl he fell in love with, as strong as she is beautiful yet no less whimsical when the mood takes.

"Like a Queen, Filip. Like you did."

It's a relief. To know for sure the man who stepped out from the shadows is a good one? It settles a lot for him.

"That's good. Aye, aye, that's grand."

"And, you? Anyone warming your bed of a night, Filip Telford?"

It's an opening, a moment in time where the truth might prosper. Chibs casts a quick glance towards the bedroom door, imagines Juice's face when he awakens, his hand reaching across to touch Chibs first thing in the morning...

Still, he says nothing.

"It's not cold, I'll tell you that."

"And, how did she feel about you coming out here to see your ex? I take it she knows our history?"

How did 'she' feel?

That she assumes it's female tells Chibs that the shards of he and Juice haven't quite penetrated SAMBEL like he thought they might've. 

Maybe it's better that way.

Maybe it's safer because, Christ, what his Irish brethren do when they don't understand is to look to destroy. 

"All's in hand, Fi. Trust me."

"Famous last words, eh?"

(*)

It's almost 10 when Juice finally emerges. Chibs' daughter trails behind him, arms folded across her chest, eyes red with long-spent tears.

"I had a little visitor," Juice confirms, nodding in her direction. "It's all good."

She goes straight to her mother, wrapping her arms around her waist and burying her face in the older woman's shoulder like she did when she was a little girl.

"Sorry, Mam," she whispers, her words lost in the soft wool of Fiona's sweater. "I've been a right cow."

Fiona leans down and kisses her soft, dark hair. She tells her she loves her more than she'll ever know and thanks her for coming home.

She doesn't clip her round the ear like she threatened to. She just wraps her in her mother's love.

It means a lot when Fiona's eyes meet Juice's and she mouths a poignant "thank you."

He's grateful for that.

The mouth on the back of his neck is brisk. Unexpected. It's risky, with Fiona in the room, but her attention is firmly fixed on her daughter.

"How did you get so good, eh?" Chibs asks

Juice smiles. Says nothing.

Appreciates the sentiment.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Remembrance

Every Saturday, Tig takes off on his bike and goes looking for wild flowers. They're hard to find sometimes, the heat of Summer merciless in it's culling, but he perseveres. He knows if he looks hard enough, searches long enough, he’ll find something worthy of his cause. 

There's something to be said about Tickseed growing against all odds in the dead, dry heat when the fierce temperature takes so many down with it. There’s strength in those tiny, resolute flowers.

Tig picks them for Dawnie, for his little girl who fought premature birth along with her sister and who came through everything despite having a flaky fuck for a father and a mother who was absent in her own way, depression and alcohol taking their toll when the going got tough. She loved doing this, riding along open roads in her Daddy's company looking for those pretty, magic flowers that sprung from desert wasteland.

This was their time.

It's difficult for Tig, going back to the place where she died. Every time he closes his eyes he sees it, her small body dancing in the fire. He owes it to her to do this; to commemorate her time on this Earth at the very place she left it.

It’s quiet. It’s always quiet here now, not a soul to be seen. The warehouses are boarded and pretty soon this place will be flattened to the ground. All trace of what was here before will be gone. It almost feels as though they're desecrating her place of rest but she doesn't lie here. Tig carried her charred body away from this place so that she could rest in a place where violence didn't touch her. 

He'll never forget how rigid his soft daughter had felt in his arms that night. 

He crouches down, hand pressed against the ground and he swears its still warm from where she lay down. As he places the flowers he swears he can hear her laugh drowning out the screams of his memory, that childlike giggle a tinkle in the back of his ear. He's happy fur that, at least, happy he can see her as the beautiful girl she was in life, not the charred and blackened corpse he kissed goodnight.,

"Love you," he says, words carrying on the breeze. "Miss you."

At that moment he feels a buzz in his pocket, a message not from beyond the grave but across the ocean, and when he reads it, the timing seems impeccable.

"She's back," it says, and Chibs isn't talking about Dawn but his own girl.

He smiles.

It's bittersweet.

"Hold her tight," he types. "Keep her close."

It seems sentimental for a killer to say such a thing. The words and the smile seem misplaced for a man such as himself, but if he's learned anything from the events of these past years, it's that family is the only thing a man can hold onto.

As he looks down at that empty space before him, its vastness decorated with yellow petals and green stems, he knows he'd do anything to preserve it.

(*)

The buzz of the clubhouse is something else now that the right man is heading it. As Tig pushes through the door it’s without the familiar dread he used to feel in the pit of his stomach at the thought of what could possibly have gone wrong.

There’s none of that now. There is only Happy playing pool with one of the prospects, Montez polishing old metal in the corner with a beer in his hand. There is only Venus standing tall and proud, adorning the place in that way she does. She blows him a kiss and, if he didn’t have his hands full and people weren’t watching, he might just have caught it.

"Hey, sugar-bear. You heard from the Gaelic wonder? He said he was gonna call today."

"Yeah. Yeah, he’s been in touch.”

"And, how's his little darlin’?”

"She's home safe. Some kind of teenage rebellion thing goin' on. They won't be going to church any time soon, by the sounds of it."

The only ‘church’ Chibs has been accustomed to in recent years has been his place at the table. The only saviour he’s worshipped, if the truth were told, have been Gods of his own making.

"Well, we've all been there, haven't we, angel? Kicking and screaming against mommy and daddy's regime? I bet you were a prize terror when you were her age."

Tig throws down his coat, pulls up a pew. He grabs the bottle she’s put in front of him without even thinking.

"When I was her age? I was on the verge of enlisting. I was the best boy a momma could hope for."

"Oh yeah? You still are."

Venus is Momma now. She is Momma and Papa and everything in between. Tig twists his fingers into hers, marvels at how she keeps her hands so clean when there is dirt underneath all of their fingernails ground in so deep that even a scrubbing brush can’t dislodge it.

Somehow, Venus has always kept herself clean.

"Said he's gonna stick around for a few days so we’re still on point. He's trying to figure out a way of gettin' her back here with him."

"And, his wife?"

"Ex-wife. She wants her kid away from Belfast. Loves her like you wouldn't believe, but she knows what’s best for her. No real jobs. She's on her way to bein' someone's old lady. Fiona wants better than that for her, even if it means letting her go."

For Tig, it's a brave choice. To cut loose the apron strings to let your baby fly high, that's something he knows all about. One of the reasons he kept his distance was because he wanted his kids as far away from this life as possible. He realises, now, that the right choice would've been to choose them over the saddle but he was young and stupid back then and even though he’s had his time and he’s learned his lessons, he doesn’t think he’d do it any differently, even now.

"Fiona met a guy. Apparently, he's the real deal for her. She has a life over there. Chibs is gonna speak to Seamus about the possibility of done Euro dealing while they’re out there. Nothing set in stone, just the stuff we were talking a out. They're old school. Face to face is the way with the Irish. Can’t do a damn thing over the phone."

"My grandaddy was part shamrock, honey pie. I know all about their ways. They gonna talk about the new policy?"

"Y'mean blacks and queers?

"Yeah."

Wraps his arms around her tight waist, presses against her firm, beautiful, unconventional body.

TIg knows this wouldn't be embraced across the pond, where gender roles are still defined and a man is less than man if he can't hold onto a woman.

There’s nothing progressive about SAMBEL. They’ve enough troubles of their own without taking on new challenges.

"Momma worries. They aint exactly experts at hidin’, y’know? Wouldn’t take a genius to figure out old Chibby’s more than just a Daddy figure to that boy."

It’s something that’s crossed Tig’s mind too, the idea of them outing themselves without being prepared, without even knowing it’s the case.

It’s another world out there.

"It's not for you to worry about, darlin'. You just worry about me."

"Always."

"Yeah?"

She kisses his nose, sweet as anything. It feels so right that Tig can’t imagine anyone calling it into question.

"Yeah."

She smiles.

"A true man. Now, do yourself a favour and go see to Leon. Last I saw, that boy had his head in a Corvette thinkin' he'd find a Harley motor. That ain't no good thing for a SAMCRO prospect."

"He's learning."

"He's remedial at best. That poor boy needs a firm hand and an elementary school workbook."

"He'll get there. Half-Sack barely knew how to work a screwdriver when we first picked him up. We're all-inclusive here. We cater to all levels of mental ability. I lead a band of merry jerkoffs."

She pushes forward, her eyes full if something Tig understands only too well.

"Hmm. Speakin' of jerkin' off..."

"If I didn't have work to do I would be all over that."

"You're something special, you know that?"

Tig smiles. He's not so special. He's a guy who watched his daughter burn because he killed someone else's. He's trying to be a better man, though. She makes him a better man, this man who knows she's a woman.

Fiona had no chance in life. Not with the background she came from. It’s sad, in a way, a small woman dwarfed by the weight she carried with her.

"All because of you," he tells Venus. 

She doesn't realise just how true that is.

(*)

Maybe it's because she's watchful, a young woman with four pair of eyes that see everything, know everything.

Maybe it's because she's inquisitive, her slender fingers worming their way through other people's things because her lack of trust outweighs her respect for boundaries.

It could be that she's been brought up in a world where she is a natural underdog because of the colour of her skin and it pays to know what others are thinking and feeling because knowledge is key and intuition is the bullets and shield which protect.

"Is there something going on?" she asks, when she has her father alone, and he knows he can't lie to her. This is a girl to whom lies have always been a barrier to step around. In the same way Juice dodged mines in that field, back when things were tough, Kerrianne has dodged her stepfather's warped truths and her mother’s white fibs, all designed to protect or control.

She has become versed in mistrust and Chibs will not add to that.

He owes her that much.

"What are you talking about, love?"

"The way he looks at you like you're his port in the fuckin' storm."

Hearing her swear makes him seethe inside but he knows he hasn't the place in her life to correct her. He'll choose his battles wisely until he's earned the right to take the helm, Sergeant in Arms to Fiona, as should be the way.

"He...means a lot to me, and I mean a lot to him."

"The lads said he was someone's bitch on prison, some racist fella. I didn't tell him I knew but that's what they were saying. Bent over for some fuckwit to get through his time."

Chibs will tolerate a lot coming from his daughter's mouth. That, he won't stand for. Not that word. Not that sentiment.

His hand is firm on her shoulder, his voice firmer as he pulls her firmly out of potential earshot.

"Don't ever say that, do you hear me?”

“Alright. Chill out.”

“ You don't know what he went through in that place because of Jax fucking Teller. You don't belittle it by taking words out of the mouths of tossers that don't know what happened. You hear me?"

" I didn't mean anything by it, I was just saying."

Hearing the tone of her voice, Chibs knows that perhaps he’s taken it too far. It’s not that she looks fearful, nothing of the sort. She just looks bewildered.

“I’m sorry, alright? It’s just – “

“It’s fine, Da. I get it.”

Her arms fold across her chest and she stares at the floor, taken aback by her father's fury. They still haven't addressed the issue at hand. She’s quiet for a few moments before she says what’s on her mind.

"It's not just the way he looks at you. It's the way you look at him. You used to look at him like a proud old man, like he was your crowning glory or some shite. Now, you look at him the way Colin looks at my mother. I'm not blind."

“You’re certainly not that.”

“You’re not exactly subtle either. You wear it on your sleeve. I take after you in that sense, she always says.”

“It’s not a bad thing, darlin’.”

“No, not always. But, sometimes.”

That she managed to figure it out based on a couple of hours in the same room as the two makes Chibs wonder of Fiona has done the same. Has she seen what their daughter has seen? Has she felt whatever it is they give off that confirms, without reasonable doubt, what they are to each other?

"Kerri -" he starts, voice softly controlled because he knows he only has one chance to get this right and he doesn't want to make things difficult.

She silences him with a look, with a shake of the head.

She's going to be some powerhouse when she matures, and it makes him swell with pride.

"Look, it's 2015. I barely know you. Who you screw is your own business. It’s got shite-all to do with me."

"It’s just…me and Juicy, we've been through a lot together. I care for him a lot."

"You love him?"

Is this the time for proclamations? Is it the time to reveal the true depth of what he feels for the kid who played cards and board games with her only a few years ago, leaving her a blushing, pining mess?

He owes it to Juice to be honest.

He owes it to Kerri, too.

"Aye. Aye, I do, and I wanted to tell you face to face because I knew it'd filter through sooner or later. Better you hear it from me than listen to them talk shite about us down at SAMBEL."

"They don't know. I'd have heard about it if they did."

"Well, it's none of their business. You're my family. I'm here for you, not them. Do you think your mother knows?"

"No. She's got her head up her arse at the minute. You could probably throw him over the table on front of her and she wouldn't get onto it."

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen."

"I should hope not. That's disgusting. An old man like you. He's got a nice arse, though, I'll tell you that..."

"I was planning on telling her."

"I wouldn't."

She sounds so certain, like there's no doubt in her mind. Such certainty surprises Chibs, but he's willing to bet his daughter knows her better than he does.

"It's not that she's against that sort of thing but...you? And Juice? Well, that's a little close to home. She was your wife, Filip."

"She's moved on."

But, how far? How far did she go?

"Not that far."

Maybe she'll never move on far enough for this to not matter. Fiona is not an intolerant woman. She is a woman who has suffered adversity her whole life. She would not begrudge a man happiness with another man.

What she might begrudge, however, is the man she once referred to as the love of her life finding happiness with a kid young enough to be their child and towards whom her own feelings stray into the maternal.

Nobody said this was easy,

Relationships are wonderful things until they're over. Then they're just minefields waiting to blow.


	6. Chapter 6

## Chapter 6 – Accept and Deny

Juice loves Chibs.

Juice loves Chibs in the same way he loves life. It's a complicated love, one which often keeps him awake at night because it's vast and painful and, at times, something he wishes wasn't 'there' at all.

Love fucking hurts, that's what he knows.

Juice knows in his heart that he cannot give Chibs what he needs in this world. That's what he tells himself. In his weaker moments he voices it, reminds the older man that he's a guy with cracks so deep they're cavernous and there's every chance Chibs is going to fall into them.

Chibs tells him to shut the fuck up, that he's a 'dumb wee bastard' who needs to remember that the world is a better place with him in it, and Juice tries so hard to believe.

It's difficult to hold onto that 'truth' when he sees Chibs with his daughter and her mother, with the family he has if he wants it, the family who he believes could give him so much more than Juice ever could.

Swallowing it down, he pats Chibs on the thigh. In times gone by this action would've meant nothing.

It no longer means nothing.

"Alright, lad?"

The voice pulls him out of his thoughts. It's good timing. That familiar drowning sensation had been threatening and, this far removed from home and thrust into a scenario that's painfully unfamiliar to him, there's a chance he would not have stayed afloat.

He looks up, meets Chibs' eyes with a purpose. He's unstuck, but he's holding firm.

"You still with me, Juicy?"

Juice smiles.

"Yeah, Chibby. Still here."

Maybe it's selfish that he's still there. Maybe it's not. Maybe Chibs can see right through him, because there's a real sense of reassurance when he tells Juice he's grateful for that.

"I love her and her ma but playing happy families? It's doing me in. Makes me wonder how I ever did it before. You're more than just moral support."

"Oh yeah?"

It's not that he's fishing for compliments. Not quite. It's more that he's angling for confidence, something to anchor him when the worst of the storms hit. Juice used to be a sunny guy but these days, there are a Hell of a lot of grey clouds.

Chibs offers to part them readily.

He offers so much readily.

"You're everything to me, laddie. Don't you forget that, alright?"

He'll try. He'll really try.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure."

(*)

When they arrive at the clubhouse it feels like a chore whereas before it had seemed like a nice prospect. He had been looking forward to catching up with people he hadn't seen in years, old friends he partied with and endured with and bonded with over stories of juvenile misdemeanours.

Then, he heard what they'd been saying about him and the truth outshone everything.

He remembers the excitement he felt the last time. He couldn't explain it. It had been something about the idea of an extended family, those country cousins that lived in a whole new world and yet, at the same time, had their backs the minute they set foot on green foreign soil.

The welcome party had been memorable, a real eye opener. Juice had spent half the night with that girl who danced like nobody was watching and made no attempt at hiding how much she wanted to take him back to 'her corner' and 'show him the Irish way'.

He'd abandoned her close to midnight to watch Jax push his fists into someone's face and they'd called him an 'eejit' for letting go of a sure thing.

One of them had asked if he was a 'fudge packer' because no man in their right mind would watch two sweaty men lay into each other instead of "getting his end away."

It's those words that taunt him now, their blatant disdain for "that sort of thing" shaping just how they could react to him knowing what became of him after he left.

The first thing that strikes Juice is the fact that nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed.

"What are we even doing here?" Juice asks as the car pulls up to the front. Same old grey walls. Same old ugliness.

"I hate working vacations."

"I thought you were looking forward to it. What arsehole were you saying is hilarious?"

Things have changed since then. Kerri talked. Chibs came clean.

They know a version of the truth that casts him in a weak, pliable light.

Any respect they had for him will be long dead.

"I'm just checkin' in, lad. There's a couple of bits of club business I need to talk over."

"I thought that was on hold? Isn't that what you decided?"

"Yeah, well. Easier to do it face to face, just like I said. It'll be half an hour, tops. I don't want to do this any more than you do."

"Hmm."

It could be his apprehension is bleeding through. Maybe it's just that Chibs knows him so well.

"They're Sons, Juicy. Nothing's gonna happen. They're not bloody daft."

"And, if it does? Because, what your daughter told you isn't exactly injecting me with confidence."

Ugly words. Blinkered, bigoted beliefs. Do they really believe he consented for an easy life?

('You prefer cocks and balls to tits and fanny, eh? She sucks like a pro.')

"Just trust me."

That's the problem. Juice trusts Chibs, trusts him with his life.

It's trusting others that he has an issue with.

"I've got your back, lad. Don't forget that,"

It's not that he forgets, it's just the knowledge they're heavily outnumbered by guys who would never have their backs if they knew that they were sleeping together.

Chibs is a lot of things, but he's only human.

They're both only human.

(*)

Juice can sense the disharmony the minute they get through the doors. It's an imbalance he grew to live with when Jax was at the helm, a kind of tension that bleeds into the atmosphere and presses down on the people who inhabit the space.

It's nothing to do with them.

From the outset, it's clear that the president and sergeant are at odds; that there is a distinct split between the rest of the guys, who don't know which way to follow. Juice remembers this feeling well, that awful time when Jax and Clay were at war and, though his heart told him to stick with the older man, his head drew him to Jax. A brotherhood isn't a brotherhood when its members want different things and what should feel like togetherness only feels like familial dysfunction.

Juice has has enough dysfunction in his life.

It's clear, though, how much Chibs means to them when they all band together to embrace him and that, in itself, feels like it's made a small difference. They welcome Juice by-proxy, kind of an extension of Chibs and, though they might have their opinions, they voice none of them at the minute. If he's looking deeply, however, he swears he feels something from them that tells him what he needs to know. They approach him carefully, as one might a stranger. He wonders if he gives off a vibe, now, something volatile and explosive at best, something breakable at worst.

Is he so changed?

Tully told him they'd never treat him the same again. He told him a lot of things, all of them buzzing around his head like a swarm of otherworldly mosquitoes wanting to take a piece of him.

No amount of anything will stop the words from forming lumps that itch whether he scratches them or not.

Damien, a guy with a bald head and a warm smile, takes his hand to shake it and, when they pass that point, the older man smirks and pulls him into a hug.

It disarms. It de-escalates.

"Y'alright, son? Hardly recognised you."

"Got older," Juice replies. "Found out my tats meant something sordid. Thought I best cover 'em up to save from turnin' grandma's head, y'know?"

"You walkin' round with 'cocksucker' written on your bonce?"

For a second, the words strike Juice cold. Then he sees the expression on the other man's face. There's no malice there. It's just a passing joke.

"Yeah, something like that. Could've been whore or douchebag. I'm not sure."

He smiles despite himself because Damien embraces him like nothing has changed, no tiptoeing on words and insults, no pussyfooting around and, if there were more people like that in his life, he might not feel like such a tragic leper.

He doesn't expect the same from all of them and it takes all that's in him to try not to wonder which one of them started the Chinese whispers about him.

Easy. A pushover.

A guy who goes down willingly because it hurts less.

('They've got the wrong idea about what happened, Juicy. That's all.')

He blanches at the thought.

"You want beer? A whiskey, maybe? I seem to remember vodka was your poison but we had a bit of a thing last night and it's all gone. The old Pres is a little worse for wear. Think he downed the lot. Mid-life fucking crisis or some shite."

"Just...water would be great."

"Water? Christ. What's wrong with you? Long journey like that and all you want's water?"

Water keeps his wits about him, doesn't interfere with anything.

Water keeps him focused when he's not secure in company.

"C'mon. Have a beer with me."

"Leave him be, Damo" Chibs interjects, and it riles Juice just a little because it's like he's drawing attention to how he can't fight his own battles.

He's tired of being seen as a broken teacup at risk of falling apart.

"He's driving this afternoon. Last thing he needs is getting pulled over and breathalysed. They don't treat foreigners well over here. You know that. Remember Peter Calfo?"

"Ah, fair do's. Didn't know you were driving. Is the old man's back playing up again?"

"Always."

Damien pats Juice on the back and its a good job he's recovered at least some of his sense of self, place and security. Rat found out the hard way what it is to touch an abuse victim before he's ready for casual contact.

He's come a long way.

(*)

It takes fifteen minutes for the peace to crack and for Chibs' protective wrath to bleed through.

Thankfully, Juice isn't present. It almost seems cowardly, to bring up thoughts and reservations when the man isn't there to defend himself.

Seamus asks Chibs, like there's nothing to it, if Juice should be wearing the cut; whether SAMCRO's president should be associating himself with a rag-end kid who stuck his arse the the air for an easy life.

"Careful," he warns, but the words are out and they can't be taken back. They're bullets from a gun and, once fired, they

He didn't expect anything more from this lot. They have lived in such a masculine, oppressive world. Anything that falls outside of their set ways and ideals is met with volatile defences.

"It looks bad on the club, someone giving in like that. I've been hearing some things dripping through the grapevine. I don't even want to entertain the idea they might be true."

"What have you heard?"

"Trannies and queers? We're an MC, not the league of fucking nations and deviants."

Chibs says nothing. He just listens. He wonders if he sounded this way when he was here; if his own mind and tongue was so rancid it burned a hole in his words like this.

Venus keeps telling him he can't change the minds of the world.

It doesn't stop him wanting to knock it's teeth out.

"I hear you lost Rat? Tapped out to live off the fat of the land? Teller said he was a good prospect. Exactly what the club was looking for, he said. I heard he was loyal."

"And, Teller was salt of the Earth? Rat couldn't handle it. He patched out. You call that loyalty? Meanwhile, the guy you're chipping into went through Hell and never once turned his back on the club. I think you've got your head on backwards."

"I've done time, Telford. We all have. Don't tell me you would've done the same. You would've died before submitting to that."

Otto submitted. Does that make him worthy of scorn? Is there such a thing as submission when there is no choice and, no matter what, the outcome will be the same?

Chibs calls it self preservation,

"Teller ordered it all. Actioned it. That boy was locked in a six foot cell without even his brothers to watch his back. We threw him to the lions. Not once did he sell us out. We're the ones that should be ashamed, not him."

He points a finger without realising it, a physical manifestation as he jabs his point across.

"Not once. You understand? Not when he was beaten bloody. Not when he was cornered. He never caved."

Seamus looks away, his jaw firm and his eyes distant.

"Aye, well..."

 Maybe he's looking for issues with another club because his own is in such a state. They're leaking money where they should be making it, are close to a turf war with a local Celt gang who want their guts for garters. It's that whole thing about picking faults in others to save from paying attention to your own.

He sighs.

"The lads think he's easy meat. They'll never trust him. They think you're soft for letting him keep the patch after all he did."

"Well, 'the lads' are wrong. I'm not gonna go pushing our new policies onto you. Don't you start singling out one of mine. You got that?"

"I'm just saying..."

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

There's the tone that makes him the right man to lead. There's that definition.

"No. You don't."

"Right. Shall we get on with it, then?"

Chibs realises he's fighting a losing battle. He's heard it from the other charters, from whispered words between gangs and crews. Their inclusive policy is not welcome in this world, is so far ahead of itself as to be incredible. Juice is a traitor and a coward and no amount of explaining will chance some set minds.

Venus? She's an abomination. A stain on the Reaper's facade.

He would love to have them understand the true brotherhood he's building.

It's so much more solid than bigoted divide.

(*)

It seems, going deeper, that one of the MC is siphoning money into an off-shore bank account, stealing from the hands and mouths of his brothers.

Another is suspected to be selling club secrets to subsidise a burgeoning drug habit.

Give Chibs trannies and queers over thieves and liars any day of the week.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brand new chapter :) 
> 
> Thanks to all who left kudos and comments. Again, it helps.

CHAPTER 7 – Catch and Release

Helplessness wasn’t always something that Juice was susceptible to. Living the way he did as a child, surviving the way he survived, those were the actions of a kid who had fight in him; a little boy who would battle to the very bitter bones of himself in order to keep afloat.

Somewhere along the way, Jax Teller dug his poisoned nails into that. He gutted it where it stood. He stripped that boy bare and left a raw, gaping wound in its stead.

It was cultivated helplessness that kept Juice in check, the quiet knowledge that he simply didn't matter and that he was and always would be somebody's collateral damage. Chibs has been working hard to break that conditioning down and Venus, with her wise words and her rock-hard life experiences, has been gradually building his fragile self-esteem so that the shell of a man he was becomes fleshed out instead of hollow. She tells him they'll make something special out of the tatters his assailants left behind and that one day soon he'll wake up gleaming. 

“You’ll open your eyes to this brave new world and you’ll shimmer, my darling boy.”

As he emerges from a dingy office in the back of a run-down Belfast clubhouse, Chibs wonders if that day has come. 

There used to be heart to this place and the men who hung around in it. Now there are only bones. Patrick O'Malley's lip is split, his paint-white tee painted red where the blood has soaked through. He’s leaning against the wall with one hand as the other tries to stem the flow of gap teeth piercing the chapped flesh. Even from here Chibs can see his nose isn’t in its correct position. It’s angled to the left with his head tilted in the same direction, as though his balance is off. He’s muttering words in his mother tongue that even Chibs can’t understand, though he can read the venom from twenty feet away. He does manage to identify two words.

Psycho.

Cunt. 

They’re strong words, not to be banded about, but O’Malley will wake up with two black eyes and an inability to breathe without his mouth wide open so the words, at least from his warped, wounded perspective, will apply,

They apply to Juice, it seems, and Chibs wonders what God he must’ve pissed off for this to have happened today, not minutes after talking up Juice’s graces and guaranteeing his ex Brother-in-Arms he’s trustworthy.

Chibs knows that most of Paddy’s anger comes from shame; that most of the indignity comes from the fact that Juice, a man half his size and whose reputation in these parts is repulsively undeserved, has pummelled him down to nothing. The worst part, Chibs imagines, is that Juice is the one whose wounds are tended to while Paddy himself is left to bleed himself dry.

“What in the name of Christ’s going on?”

Maureen Ashby is cradling Juice’s hand in her own as he experimentally clenches it to a fist before unfolding it and laying it flat. His knuckles look red and raw, dotted with blood that clearly isn’t his own, which puts Chibs in mind of the times Juice takes out his anger on brick walls. The expression on his face can only be described as detached. He’s staring at the hand as if it’s not his own and, when Chibs calls out his name, he looks up with clear bewilderment in his eyes.

“Juicy boy…”

“Hush, now,” Maureen chides him, and she might be a woman of small stature but she has a way with words and tone that Chibs has never quite come to terms with. It silences him immediately. Her eyes move back to Juice. Those are mothers’ eyes. This is a mother’s concern.

“Let the boy come back to himself.”

Juice is staring at his own cradled hand as if it’s not his own and, when Chibs places a hand on his shoulder he looks up with clear confusion in his eyes as if he can’t quite connect the wound and the pain to his clear and obvious actions.

“You with me?” Chibs asks quietly, so as not to be heard.

He doesn’t respond, not immediately. He's not back just yet, lost in some dissociative aftermath that leaves him near-mute and virtually unreachable. 

O’Malley yells a Gaelic curse in his direction in a nasal voice that doesn’t belong to him and it’s only at that moment Juice snaps out of it. The afflicted man doesn’t move to come towards Juice, clearly not trusting himself to stand. Juice blinks before turning towards him and, with a renewed mental strength he is only recently beginning to show, glares at him. He promises more of the same if the old man keeps on antagonising.

"See what happens,” he says, and Chibs isn’t sure whether it’s ice or fire in his voice but it’s certainly not submission. It’s certainly not that distinct tone that Teller left him with having degraded him down to nothing.

It’s not submission because to show such a thing to these men would only pour fuel onto the fire that’s already burning in some of them.

“You’re a fucking lunatic, Ortiz. I knew it when I first laid eyes on you.”

“Yeah? I didn’t see any of your pals coming to your side when you started shouting your God-damned mouth off. Think about that, jerkoff.”

O’Malley says nothing, likely because he can’t, and for a moment there is quiet. Juice clears his throat and winces when Maureen squeezes his hand.

Part of Chibs wants to tell Juice that he can’t come into another charter’s territory and raise a hand to one if it's long serving members. The other part wants to pull him deep and hard and firm and tight and rejoice in the fact he made his point, that point being in support of himself and his own worth. 

He can't remember the last time. Z

“I leave you alone for half an hour,” Chibs says, paying no heed to the Irishman he once considered a friend as peels himself up off the ground and shudders away with his tail between his legs. “Thirty minutes, Juicy.”

“Yeah, well, that asshole needs to learn to keep his mouth shut if he doesn’t know the facts.”

The only ‘facts’ the guys know are that Juice gave in.

It’s not even a scrape on the surface.

“He doesn’t know the facts.”

"S'alright, lad. It's done."

The sad story of Juice’s life, at present, is that he’s forever reduced to explaining himself to people who don’t know him, will never know him, don’t deserve to know him and don’t deserve to know the truth.

The fact he has to defend himself is unforgivable.

“How can he say that shit to me? How can he even think that of me?”

"He's a cunt. Remember that."

Chibs doesn’t need to ask what that shit is, and what those thoughts, are.

Seamus told him everything he needed to know.

“Fuck him, Chibs. Fuck all of them.”

“Aye. Just…calm down for a second, alright? There’s a good lad.”

It’s strange, hearing him speak like this. The old Juice was impulsive and didn’t stand for nonsense. The old Juice, before the cops got their nails and knives into him, would’ve reacted in the same way, with fists, with fury. When he was prospecting, Clay used to call him Biff Tannen because, like the character in the movie, his short fuse would blow when his honour was called into question. He grew out of it. It was just something he’d learned growing up, that reputation is key and that words and rumours could hurt so much more than a fist and a gun in the long-run.

The ‘new’ Juice, the one who was ground down to nothing, he doesn't value himself enough to defend himself. He is accustomed to being told he is nothing, worth nothing, that he is an idiot and a half-wit and, more recently, a victim, weak and afraid.

It feels like something has finally clicked.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s more to Maureen than anyone else because she’s the one physically holding him together, right now, and she’s the one who had to bear witness to the fact he answered with a punch rather than a well-reasoned response. “I’m just tired of it.”

“Your boy here’s been causin’ trouble,” she says, eyeing Chibs with concern.

“I wasn’t causing anything. He’s the one who had too much shit to say.”

“I know, son. I do."

It’s only now he looks at her that Chibs can see the toll of these last few years. It’s written across her face. The struggle, its etched in her eyes. Fiona might not see eye to eye with this woman but there’s no doubting the sacrifices she has made.

“You’re lucky it was only Paddy,” she says to Chibs. “If he’d raised a hand to one of the elders I wouldn’t be standing here with him, that’s for sure.”

She gazes off into the distance.

“The lad needs to learn reel it in. There’s enough aggro as it is without this shite.”

Whether she’s speaking of O’Malley or Juice is unclear, but Maureen’s always been the Mother Superior and Juice appeals to that. Gemma once joked that he was her youngest child; that if her ovaries weren’t long since withered and dead he might just have made them twinge. 

(*) 

“That’ll have fallout, laddie. Just so you know. You know the rule.”

It’s club rule, even if divided by charters. If a member has a physical altercation with another then the aggrieved party has a right to retaliate.

Juice could point out numerous occasions when the unwritten rule wasn’t followed in his case, the times when Jax took a fist to him, the times Clay took a fist to someone else. He figures the President of the club is an exception to the rule in the same way he’s exception to any rule.

He nods his head.

“If he wants to try to even the score I’m happy to step up. I can take him. I’m not scared of an asshole like him. If he wants to fight it out, so be it.”

Chibs is quiet for a moment. His hands around the steering wheel are tight, knuckles as white as Juice’s are black and bruised.

“You could’ve handled it better, Juicy. Maureen wasn’t wrong. Yeah, he’s an arsehole but he’s well thought of ‘round these parts. You think Seamus is going to take you deckin’ one of his lads well? We’re already goin’ against the grain, the way we’ve gone these past months. We’re on thin ice with the other charters. It’s shite, but we can’t just go ‘round deckin’ each other.”

Juice looks crestfallen, as if the wind has been taken from his sails and the fire he hasn’t felt for so long has been pissed on. Chibs doesn’t mean to do that to him but he’s at a critical stage, now, a stage he’s seen in so many who have gone before him.

This is the stage where he feels he’s a point to prove.

It can all go so badly wrong.

“I know, Chibs. I know, I just – God damn it, I couldn’t listen to that. Not from a fat fuck like him.“

Chibs looks at Juice from the corner of his eye and pulls him close, hand around his neck, lips pressed to the side of his head in an almost violent kiss. Chibs knows how it’s going to be tonight and is thankful his ex-wife and daughter sleep like the dead because Juice’s clarity comes in hard, tight, soundless thrusts and his relief comes in the firmness of Chibs’ arms around him afterwards.

He can’t say it’s an unwelcome thing.

“I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself, whatever happens.”

It’s hard to tell what the action would be, if anything at all. He could go in there shouting his mouth off and building his case on lies. Chances are, they’ll get behind him. At the root of it all there’s disapproval. 

The crux of it is, they’ve painted a picture of Juice that no words will change and, while some of them will see him for the survivor he is, the more traditional will see him as a weed that needs to be uprooted, lest it take control and snuff out the plant itself. Seamus is that way inclined. The way he was speaking was the way Piney once spoke. Clay. The elder. The traditionally bigoted. 

They’ll see it as a respect thing. Juice, an outsider, had no business entering SAMBEL territory and lashing out at one of its members, an older man for sure, a man who forms part of SAMBEL’s backbone.

They’ll label it banter, most likely, suggesting if Juice can’t handle it he shouldn’t be part of the brotherhood but there’s banter and there are scathing personal attacks and those have never been tolerated under any rule or regime.

Seamus listens to Maureen, though. He listens to her in the same way Clay used to listen to Gemma. She’s more than a voice in his ear. Whereas Gemma could be malevolent, Maureen is entirely fair. Where Gemma was a gnat that buzzed and buzzed, Maureen is a soft whisper of reason.

Maybe she’ll speak up on Juice’s behalf.

Maybe she’ll pave the way.

“So, other than me being an impulsive dick, are we done?” Juice asks, and he sounds more than done, like any degree of excitement he had in coming to this place has been snuffed out in a heartbeat when the reality set in.

He sounds like a person who wants to go home, to go to bed, to lose himself in Chibs the only way he knows how.

“Club’s in a mess. Backstabbin’ all over the place but, like I told Seamus, if he can’t keep his ship in order he shouldn’t be captain. He didn’t like that.”

“You said that?”

“He asked my opinion and I gave it. Club hasn’t been the same since it all went down. The thought of my girl hangin’ round that place screws with my mind, I’m telling you.”

“The air’s toxic. Everyone hatin’ on each other.”

“Aye, it’s pretty dire.”

It’s thick, like burning tyres. No room to breathe. Brotherhood lost to a vice grip of bitterness and backstabbing. The minute you can’t trust your brother is the minute a club is destined to fail. They know all about that. That kind of instability, it leaves people drowning.

There’s a poison in that place that only a firm hand will be able to siphon out.

“We’ve got our own charter to think about. I wouldn’t leave him in the lurch. If he needs me, aye, I’ll do my best, but I can’t help him unless he’s willin’ to help himself. This is something he’s gonna have to fix himself.”

“So, you told him to take a hike?”

“I offered advice, let’s say, and I told him I’m not willin’ to talk business until he gets things under control. There are opportunities that would benefit us all but not the way things are. Whether or not he chooses to take the advice is another matter."

Chibs has to think of his own, first and foremost.

"We’ve got a steady ride at the minute, Juicy. Don’t want to start rockin’ the boat unnecessarily. I’m not gonna jump into deep fuckin’ water, y’know?”

There’s a sense of stability about things, now. A distinct order. Chibs is a careful man, always has been, and he won’t jump in without looking at all angles.

“Jax would’ve jumped in. It would’ve been all about the money.”

“Not gonna lie, it’d be nice to make a bit more and throw a brother a lifeline but…we have to think of ourselves.”

"Like always."

“You know me. Proceed with caution. There’s a whole lot of unsteadiness in these parts, always has been. It’s why I got out.”

Juice smiles softly, the kind of smile that breaks Chibs' heart.

“I’m glad you got out.”

If he hadn’t, Juice doesn’t know where he’d be. Dead, most likely, or at least floundering somewhere.

Certainly not here. Not whole. 

(*)

Chibs receives a call from Seamus not nineteen minutes after they’ve left the clubhouse.

The basic gist of it, gathered between ranting, raving and bitter obscenity, is that Chibs has to make a choice. Get rid of Juice, lose the trannie and start giving the club the respect that years of reputation has garnered - or SAMBEL walk, taking all future business and association with it.

“You’re fast running out of friends. Can you really afford to lose another charter over a man in a dress and a halfwit spick who can’t keep his hands to himself OR his arsehole clean?”

For Chibs, it’s a no brainer.

He’s pretty sure the club would agree without a vote.

“Watch your back,” he warns Seamus. “You need me more than I need you. Enjoy wading through the shite. You’re gonna need all the luck you can get.”

If ever there was a thing such as a verbal explosion it's what happens at the end of the call. Chibs knows they're not idle threats either. An Irishman scorned is worse than a woman and Seamus will be more than troubled by the perceived lack of respect.

The sooner they can wrap this up the better.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 - Fierce

Chibs loves this park. He used to bring Kerri here as a toddler on a premise of daddy-bairn time; a bag full of bread to feed the ducks in his hand and a pocket full of bullets in the arse end of his jeans. You never could be too careful in this place, that’s what he learned early on. It’s beautiful on the surface, all lush green and fertile, but the current that runs beneath it can always be felt, even to a tiny child, like a parasite that leaves the shell pristine yet ravages the innards. 

Kerri was so solemn as a little girl and, up until she was around three or four, she rarely smiled. It wasn’t that she wanted for anything, more that she didn’t want to entertain the rest of the world. People thought she was unhappy or, worse, spoiled and indifferent but it wasn't that. It's that, even as a little one, you had to work hard for her affection. 

She is and always has been hard work, but in the best of ways. 

He sits on a rock next to the water and remembers dangling her tiny feet in. It was one of the only times she ever graced him with laughter as she kicked the water; as she threw back the tadpoles she’d caught in her little glass jar and told them "bye bye, see you later." He pictures that picture of innocence in a less than innocent place and his heart aches for that kind of simplicity. 

He sits here on that same rock with Juice, years later, and there are no bullets in his back pocket. There is a knife, though, and there is baggage. It might not contain treats meant to attract pigeons and seagulls. The only thing they attract these days are black crows, hungry and predatory.

When he looks at Juice he’s as solemn as Kerri was all those years ago. 

You never had to work for Juice's ready smile before. 

Juice, at times, is dormant. He is laden. He is clay, his face unmoving, chiselled and carved in view of beauty yet inexpressive; devoid of spark, and life. He is Pinocchio; the boy that does not live.  
Sometimes Juice isn't present at all, only the shell that hard times left of him. It scares the shit out of Chibs, but when he coaxes him back, proving to him that he's worthy of that trust and that beautiful fucking smile, it feels like he's won. 

Chibs nudges him, an elbow to Juice’s own. He breaks him from whatever thought is holding him captive with a physical nudge and, when he has the boy’s attention, he grins like a lascivious letch because he knows it amuses the younger man. 

"Hey," Juice says. 

“What'll a tenner get me, boy? Blow job? A quick wank? Fancy a spot of doggin’, laddie? We’re in the right place for it.”

Juice laughs, nudges him back because it’s a game, all of this. It’s push and shove. It’s give and take and with Chibs, he can give it back without a second thought. He knows that. He runs with it.

He’s gradually learning he can give it back to others, too, although that’s what’s got him thinking this afternoon. 

“Fuck you, old man. Your tight ass? You couldn’t afford me. Gotta splash the cash if you want prime Latino beef.” 

“S’that right, aye?”

“I don’t come cheap, Telford. You knew what you were getting’ into.”

Chibs is doing his best to lighten the mood. Juice has been tense and uncomfortable and has barely said two words from the minute they left SAMBEL. Chibs understands why. He understands that the harsh words and the twisted logic of men who know nothing are eating away at him, festering inside of him like rancid worms that burrow in his head and multiply. For thirty minutes he’s been quiet. Chibs has watched as he rubbed his hand against his leg, tapped his fingers against the side of his knee and pulled at his hair as though trying to tear the thoughts out. It’s hard to watch, these nervous tics that Juice's shrinks swear are a progression from where he was before. 

Belfast, though, she thrived on tension, fashioned around conflict and lack of tolerance.

SAMBEL is her wayward Son. 

“What you thinkin’? You're awfully quiet."

“Nothing. Just…stuff.”

“Stuff, aye?”

'Stuff' is what Juice limits explanation to when he doesn't want to go into detail. He'll offer skeletal bones rather than the flesh of his pounding thoughts. Sometimes he'll change the subject by asking if Chibs wants Netflicks and Chill, a phrase synonymous with the youth of today. 

He's too wistful for that today. 

“My mom would’ve loved this place."

"That right?"

"Yeah. She always saw the good in places, y’know? Same with people. She knew a lot of bad guys but they were never all bad to her. She could see past.”

"You got that from her, then?"

Juice smiles the smile Chibs wishes he didn't have in his repertoire of expressions. It's the self-deprecating smile, the one that makes him look young and lost and tired. 

"Fat lotta good it did me, right?"

He kicks his foot against the water and, again, Chibs flashes back to his daughter, the girl who is almost a woman, and it makes him panic for all the years he’s lost. 

He won't lose any years with Juicy. 

“It took a lot for you to do what you did. Turning your back on your old club the way you did? I don’t deserve it.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, I think.”

“Well, you’re wrong.”

The way Juice laughs is bitter. It’s not ugly, because nothing about Juice is ugly to Chibs, even the bare bones of his rage, but it’s not beautiful either. He won’t hear it, can’t hear it. He won’t listen to him put himself down like this..

“You listen to me,” he says, and perhaps he’s a little forceful when he turns Juice’s head but it’s necessary. He needs for him to look. He needs for him to see. 

"Chibby -"

He doesn't want to see. He doesn't want to hear. 

“No, you listen to me, lad. All of that shite he was spouting, it made me sick. You hear me? Nauseous as fuck, and I’ve heard a lot coming outta that place over the years.”

“Wasn’t wrong, though, was he? I am a liability. I am broken. Those orange bottles are proof of that.”

“No, you’re wrong. You’re so fucking wrong. Those orange bottles are proof you’re strong enough to ask for help. Right? You’re man enough to admit you’re struggling. You’re brave enough to do something about it. Seamus? His lads? Nothin’ brave about them, son. Nothing at all. They’ll turn a blind eye to cheatin’ and stealin’ and beatin’ their fuckin’ wives but give ‘em something they don’t see every day and they run pissing and moaning. It’s bollocks.”

“It’s life, Chibs. It’s the way people think. You pull on that cut and there aint no room for deviation. Not unless you're Tiggy and you're crazy. That’s the way it works. It's the way it's always worked. We got an uphill battle if we want to change that."

“Aye, well, I’m not one for toeing the line when it comes to that kind of thing."

Juice says nothing. He knows it's true. He also knows it's dangerous, for a club leader to stray so far. He knows the burden this brave new world places on Chibs. 

"I don't wanna be the cause of any more problems."

"I love you. You hear that? I know I’ve said it before and I meant it, but it’s different, now. I really fuckin’ mean it. You think I’d take them over you? You think I’d keep up ties with a gang of pricks who’ll judge you like that? Who'll tell me how to run my bloody club?"

His teeth are like white bricks, tightly pressed, straining in their foundations. Words escape like prisoners dissolving through the cracks. These are words that have been building up and up and up. 

Juice sets them free for Chibs. 

He purges him. 

"He can burn himself to the ground for all I care now. I'm done with that shite."

Juice stares at Chibs’ hands as he moves them across him, as they land on his thigh and squeeze tight enough to bruise. He smiles, a faraway smile that Chibs would love to touch, and tells the older man that he loves him, too. There’s apprehension in him, a fear that only comes with being let down far too many times.

“Sometimes I think I love you too much, y’know? Probably always did. Makes me feel all fucked up. It's some scary shit. Never felt like this before."

“No, me either. But, I’m not going anywhere, Juicy, and neither are the club. You think I’d let this go on the word of an old fuck like him? Nah."

He means it. This man, this loyal, thoughtful, selfless man, is everything the club should've stood for since the beginning. 

"You’re worth ten thousand of that gobshite.”

Juice reaches out on those words and the way he pats Chibs' thigh is tentative and reserved.There's something in the way he moves that tells Chibs this could be a long night. He's young and uncertain again, unsure of his place in the world because that's how easy it is for him to be knocked off his axis. He hasn't been this way in a while but, when his confidence takes a hit, it bleeds through. 

It gives Chibs a job, that's for sure. 

“Let’s just get you back, eh? See if we can sort you out before Fiona gets back.”

He wants to be told that he is right, that he is Chibs' and that he is not alone.

Chibs will give him that. 

Chibs, it seems, will give him anything.

(*)

It doesn’t take much to reel Juice in, just a touch, firm and direct. Just a pull, direct and meaningful.

Just a grasp, bruisingly hard, reminding him that this is real. 

He tells Chibs he used to imagine him sometimes, would picture him so vividly he figured heist be there only, when his hand met the curve of Chibs' body, it melted away. 

Those were the worst times, he says. 

He wants to make things real. 

The first thing he needs is for Chibs to kiss him, angry and hard, something to penetrate the layers of numbness. Something tangible he can hold onto.

He has to feel it even when the touch is gone.

"Eyes on me," Chibs says, gruff and heedy, tilting Juice's head up with a hand beneath his jaw. "Just us here. No-one else."

They’re standing in the dim light of early evening, two silhouettes facing each other in the darkness. Juice had stood steady, allowed himself to be stripped down to nothing by Chibs’ deft hands and, at the same time, allowed the layers he’d built up to be pulled back, laid bear.

He is exposed, as raw as a live wire without its protective sheath. He is explosive and dangerous and, if touched right, he is white-light and electricity.

Chibs stands before him, bare in his own right. He’s stronger than he used to be, his body honed and firmed by a better diet and more regular exercise. As he aims to heal Juice’s mind, Juice in turn has been healing his body. Now, when Juice touches him, he feels hard where he was soft before, firm where there was flesh around his middle. 

He is a better man.

They are both better men.

“Look me in the eye, boy. Tell me what you see.”

"Chibs..."

“Tell me what you see.”

It's an exercise in grounding. Chibs is anchoring Juice in this moment, not moments that have gone before. There is no ink haired Nazi here, no slick bodied Asian with a poisoned tongue. 

There is just Chibs.

“You," Juice says. "I see you.”

Juice has an analytical mind these days, It’s the only thing that keeps his badly wired instincts and stray adrenaline in check. Experience has told him that touches like this are a threat, scenarios of this sort something which require action. At his worst moments he acts before he thinks. Chibs has wore the bruises of Tully’s legacy on more than one occasion, knows, now, that preparation is key. Juice responds to the threat unless it's neutralised. 

Chibs neutralises it with careful touches; with a voice that Juice responds to. The Scottish drawl computes, somewhere inside of him, reminds him that Chibs is safe; that he is safe with Chibs.

It's all there will ever be now. Chibs. Juice. 

No-one else matters. 

There's a draw to Juice. He is an open flame and Chibs is an old moth that can't keep away from it. He wonders if Juice always ran this hot; whether this moth was blind to the light for so long it didn't know which way to fly. 

When Juice places a hand on the bland tattoo on Chibs’ hip it feels like a solid victory.

Juice's eyes on Chibs are like a physical touch, like hands to his skin, white-hot and imploring. There are unspoken words behind those eyes tonight, words Chibs tries to read, but they're written in a foreign language that he cannot decipher. There’s a sense of encryption to him, a puzzle Chibs will need to decode because Juice is more complex than anyone thought, especially when it comes to this.

Sometimes he cannot put into words what he needs. He needs a man who knows him well enough to figure that out. 

His eyes drop. No words are forthcoming. He puts his forehead to Chibs' shoulder and waits. 

As signals go, it's submissive. Yielding. 

He presses his lips to Chibs' neck and let's them linger there. Juice's body responds almost instantaneously because he responds to Chibs, always has, and this is no different. 

It's only when those gentle lips turn into a bite that Chibs gets the point. There's a sense of frustration in Juice, a fierce kind of urgency. 

“Ah. It's like that, is it?"

Chibs knows, now. He understands. When Juice’s arms fall to his sides as his body breaches the gap between them he is opening himself up. He is giving himself over.

He is saying “Do what you will.”

Guide me.

Shape me.

Help me forget. 

Help me remember. 

When Chibs whispers in Juice's ear that he understands, the boy becomes fluid, his body rippling and waning with the strength of his submission yet, if Chibs were to look at his hands, he would see white knuckles, fingers clenched tight with tension. 

He might've punched a wall before. 

Now, Juice wants to feel something. Rough. Steady. Bruises on hips. Teeth grazing across his collarbone. A full, deep thrust somewhere inside that teeters on the edge of pain and bliss. He waits to feel the firm grip of Chibs' hands on his hips, the pressure that would feel too hard to some but not to him, not to Juice who has been marked by so many that only Chibs' signature across his skin could erase that. It's not ownership. It's never that. Chibs wants no hold over Juice because too many have held him against his will. It's more than that. 

This is belonging. To each other. 

"Y'alright?"

"Perfect."

Chibs presses his mouth against Juice's soft hair before pulling his head sideways, grazes his teeth against the flesh of his neck in reciprocation of Juice's earlier gift. There's a sensitive spot at the juncture of neck and collarbone that always makes Juice tremble and sigh, a hitching little thing that starts in his throat then breathes life into itself when he opens his mouth. 

This is how it begins. 

This is how it always begins. 

When Chibs takes a hold of him and turns him around that little gasp becomes a whimper of expectation and Chibs swallows it whole, like it's sustenance, like it's the greatest sound he ever heard.  
He bites a little harder and that whimper becomes a yelp. Juice pushes back forcefully, silencing Chibs' apprehension with a jerk of his body and a frustrated grunt that is barely voiced but easily heard. Chibs pays heed and puts all his weight against him. Juice's body collides with plaster and brick and the cheap décor of an ex council-house and, as the fire comes back to Juice's eyes when they meet Chibs' over his shoulder, the older man thinks, 'that's my boy.'

There's no need for foreplay. That's not what he wants or needs. That would take too long. Lazy strokes mean nothing to Juice on days like this. His body tremors from tiny earthquakes that shake his very foundations as the force of his bones drags down all of his reservations. His hand falls down to his side and he reaches behind, fingers pressing urgently at the base of Chibs' arousal. 

He pulls a little too hard. 

Chibs doesn't have to see how face to know the satisfied smirk that sits there. 

"Like that, is it?"

"You know."

"This what you want? All of it? You have to say the words."

Chibs presses harder, a promise or a warning, he's not sure what. There's an express need to gather consent when Juice is in this headspace. Chibs cannot risk crossing lines. 

Juice tightens his hand. Says nothing. 

"Say it."

He tightens it more, and Chibs feels a spark running up his thigh, reverberating all the way through him. 

"I want it."

He licks his lips. He is a natural disaster, but as Chibs looks at those lips, at the intensity in those eyes as Juice urges him on, he finds himself overcome.

He whispers.

So close, he whispers, a breath against Juice's skin. A hand against Juice's cock, bigger…bigger than his...

"Tell me, or I stop."

"Ready," Juice says. 

Fingers already prepped, Chibs pushes inside of Juice, feeling the tightness, the warmth. Feeling the pull as Juice draws him in. He's tight, he's firm, he pushes back as though he wants Chibs to go deeper, deeper than is comfortable. Deep enough that there's no doubting he is inside. There's a natural pace that Chibs likes to maintain but Juice needs more. Slow burn, it seems, is off the cards tonight. 

"Don't hold back, old man."

This could be quick. 

"Give it all you got."

Juice reaches back and grasps Chibs hips as tight as he can at this angle. He doesn't say anything more but the low burning sound that sits in his throat gives him an edge. He's telling Chibs to go faster and the force of him pushing against Chibs, it's telling him to go harder. 

The way his hips jerk and his thighs spasm, it's telling him everything Chibs needs to hear. 

Chibs runs a hand against the length of his own cock but it never needed much encouragement when met with a body like Juice's, all lean muscle and absolute solid mass.

When he replaces those fingers with the rest of him it's like coming home. 

He watches as Juice bites his own hand to stop from screaming Chibs' name loud enough that even his own dead mother would hear. He waits, as Juice's walls close around him and everything feels right. 

"You're mine," he tells Juice. "There is only you and there is only me."

He's still grounding him in the moment, evennow.

Even now, the tension in the room is palpable, like a jagged piece of glass sharpened to a knife-point. For a brief moment everything is still, muscles taut on the edge of a word as Juice slowly turns his head towards Chibs, a smile curled at his breathless lips.

The word is yes. 

Yes, I am yours. 

I am yours and fuck the rest of the world who tried to lay claim to me. 

Before, for Juice, sex had no face to face.  
Force has no eyes; no smile. 

Love?

Love has both. 

As Chibs lays claim to his body; as he tears him down to build him back up, as he renders him naked with only those ink sleeves to keep him warm, Juice remembers. 

He remembers that sex can be good. 

He remembers that the pleasurepainbeautifulburn can be a good thing. 

He remembers that human bodies were made to feel good. 

"Don't stop," he says, and though the words bleed into each other, Chibs will hear them loud and clear. "Don't you ever fucking stop."

"I won't," Chibs promises, and he's never voiced words he meant more.

(*)

"How are things, Tiggy?"

The disembodied voice seems strange when Chibs is used to the guys living in each other's pockets. 

"Fucked up, man. Things have all turned to shit since you left. Corey's started listening to country music, Montez can't get hard and Venus missed her fucking period. Started talkin' about getting married. Come back, dude. All's forgiven."

"You're a funny fuck, aren't you?"

It's what makes him so useful to have around, this clown with a tattooed body and a scarred soul; with a smile that belongs to a woman in a man's body. 

"I try, I try. So what's up?"

"The Irish are out."

"Out? What do you mean out? Like, 'pride' out? Carnival feathers out?"

"I mean out, Trager. As in no longer part of the Anarchy clan."

It sounds strange to say it aloud.

Chibs birthplace within the charters has fallen away. 

"Seriously?"

"Aye. Bit of a long story but let's just say I was given a choice. Go straight, get rid o'you, Venus and Juicy or they walk. Apparently, we're bringing the club into disrepute. Draggin' it's esteemed name through the mud."

"Oh, yeah? Trust me, he ain't seem nothin'. I've been draggin' the club name down for years. Venus? She's a minor infraction."

Chibs knows only too well how many rules Tig has broken. 

It doesn't matter any more. 

"Juicy had a run in with one of the guys. Broke his nose."

"He did?"

"The tosser had it coming. Mouthin' off about stuff he has no business talkin' about, if ye catch my drift. Juice had enough and went hell for leather at him,"

"No kidding. Our little maggot's finally growing up, just like Mama said."

Chibs can't help but smile at that. He can hear Venus' voice in his ear telling him that one day, kids grow up.

("They fly the nest. They don't got no room for cuddlin' and coddlin', honey bee.")

"I get the feeling there'll be something done about it. I probably could've handled Seamus better an' all. Just to warn you, there might be some issues so keep your ear to the ground."

"It's cool, man. I trust your judgment. We'll stay on the ball."

"Good man."

It's not blind faith. Not like it was with Jax. 

Chibs is grateful for that. 

"Just need to make a few decisions on the wee lass and I'll be back."

"She comin' with?"

That's what's yet to be decided. 

A further decision, it seems, may well be made on the back of a broken lamp and a shitty piece of 'business' that's low even for an underhanded Irish prick like Seamus. 

Chibs awakens to the sound of smashing glass and raised voices and Juice, ever vigilant, reaches for a gun that isn't there only to find a knife that is.

It's fight or flight for Juice. 

He's ready before he's even aware of it. 

"Hang on," Chibs whispers, because he recognises the tone. He's heard it many times before. Fiona can be volatile when she wants to be. She has a problem with her temper. It can get ugly. Chibs has more than one scar from a hastily flung ashtray or video cassette, lashed in the heat of anger. 

"Wait here," he tells Juice. "If I need you I'll yell."

"Chibby -"

He's worried, scared of Chibs going out there and being lost to him. 

"It's fine, lad. Don't worry yourself. Just...go back to sleep."

He finds her sitting on the ground, her hand bleeding lightly from the glass that's littered around her. Her hair is a mess. Her makeup is running down her face.

Her anger is barely restrained and she pants against the seething force of it. 

"What's wrong?" he asks, and sometimes that's the fuel that sets the embers ablaze. 

"What's wrong? I'll tell you what's wrong. The fucking club's what's wrong."

"What are you talking about?"

"They got to Colin. All his stuff's gone. There's a note on the fucking fridge telling me things are not working and he can't be with a woman who lives her life for that shower of shite."

She looks frazzled. Bewildered. 

With her legs splayed out in front of her she looks twenty-five years younger, as though she's fresh in from a night out with her hair all askew and her mascara all worn and her body succumbing to the Bacardi that's running though it. 

Chibs loves this woman even now. 

"I don't understand it. We were taking about getting married. He knew I was putting a distance between me and the club. They fucking threatened him, so they did."

She gets more Irish the angrier she gets. She also gets redder in the face. Chibs always marvelled at the fact rage made her prettier. Brighter. 

He should've understood they were doomed from the start. 

"This is because of me," Chibs whispers and, Christ, he knows it's true. "My fault. I'll fix it."

As if he can.

As if he has the power. 

"Just...don't. There's nothing you can say, Filip. This isn't there first time and it won't be the last. They sabotage everything I fucking do. They've ruined every bit of happiness I ever had. Well, they're not sabotaging my daughter, for the love of Christ."

As she brings her cigarette up to her lips her hand is shaking.

"They're not pissing all over her like they pissed on you and me."

He forgot how brutal the charter could be, revelling in the old school idea of going after a man's family as well as the man himself. 

He didn't think they'd stoop so low as going after Fiona. 

"That's it," she says. "I'm done with this shithole. Colin was like sticking a plaster over a gaping fucking wound. I should've known. Even if if married him I still would've been living in the shadow. It's like polishing a turd. Still a turd, at the end of the day."

She's ready to go, Chibs can hear it in her voice. 

She's ready to do what he wanted her to do all those years ago for the love of their child. 

"You said Juice could get me clear passage?"

"Aye, love, in more ways than one. Give him a few days and he'll pull something together."

"Clean?"

"Juice is the best."

Juice is not a jealous man, not by nature. Juice is a good man. It's a good job, because the idea of shipping over Chibs' ex wife as well as his daughter would leave lesser men pondering their place and getting their backs up. 

Even Juice could see how this place or slowly killing her.

"I was daft enough to think staying at home meant something," she says, sadly. "Loyalty or something. To Ireland. To a country that's given me nothing. Thought I meant more to him than to bolt over a few minced words. More fool me."

"I'm sorry, darlin'."

He really is. 

He looks up at the cracks in the ceiling. He hadn't noticed them before. The place looks nice in the surface. 

So many things here look nice on the surface. 

"It's poison, Fi, it really is."

She's tired down to her marrow. It doesn't even bleed because there's nothing left. They've sucked her dry. Chibs can't stand to see it. He sits down beside her, amid broken glass and a middle aged woman's broken dreams and broken heart.

He puts his arm around her and she feels small, whittled and withered. 

Fiona never felt small. 

"We've got a good thing going over there. You'll see. It'll be good for you an' her. Leave all of this shite behind. We're workin' on something that'll put an end to all of this."

An end to all this hurting and burning if each other.

And end to all that's wrong.

"It's gonna be everything we talked about."

She smiles softly as she leans in, rests her head on his shoulder like old times. She holds her cigarette up to his lips and he takes a drag. It reminds him of how they used to be after they fucked, back in the day. 

"You're different."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Whoever you've got sucking that cock of yours is doing a good thing, I tell you that much, Telford. You remind me of when we first met. She must be giving you a right good seein' to if she's got you thinking this clearly, I tell ya."

She smiles. 

"Canny bitch, taming the Telford. Thought I'd cracked it once. I was wrong."

For Chibs it feels like now or never. It feels like the time is right to come clean. Fiona has been lied to one too many times and he won't be the man to lie to her again. 

He bites the bullet.

"Aye, Fiona, about that..."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 - Truth

There’s a real sense of buoyancy that comes from unburdening oneself with the truth. 

A lie might feel uniquely heavy on the shoulders but a secret isn’t light either. For Chibs, his relationship with Juice has been a formidable weight to carry in light of everything. It had felt wrong to keep him hidden. The idea that he might be ashamed has been something that played heavily on Chibs’ mind and, though Juice had understood his reasons for holding back with his wife, there’d always been the fear that in shutting him in the closet, it would have a negative effect on him.

He can feel the words dancing on the tip of his tongue. He knows he'll feel better once he lances them. 

“Me and Juice," he says, as though he's breaking ominous news, "we’re together.”

'Together' seems like the path of least resistance. It's stronger than friends yet milder than lovers. 'Together' indicates a meaningful kind of companionship that can be built on yet doesn't immediately conjure up images he's not sure Fiona is ready for. 

She looks at him in a manner he doesn't understand. She's always been unreadable when she wants to be, her life has dictated that, but Chibs always prided himself on the fact that he could see beyond. 

He wonders when he stopped being able to read her; when she learned to close the book on him the way that she can now. 

When did they get so far between? 

“You an’ that boy?” she asks, and her voice is as unreadable as her face. "You an' him?"

“Aye. Me an' that boy, except…he’s no boy, Fiona. Not any more. He’s done more growing up in the last few years than you could even imagine.”

"I see."

She says nothing more, not for a little while. Chibs isn’t surprised by that. What can she say? What would he say, if the tables were turned; if she were to tell him that she’s fallen in love with a woman young enough to be her child after the time they spent together?

It's a lot to take in. 

“How long?” she asks, when she had processes it. She clears her throat, flicks her cigarette into the ashtray and crosses one leg over the other. That, Chibs thinks, is better than that stillness of hers that always put the fear of God into him. 

“It's been awhile. It just…happened. I don’t know how to explain it to you, love.”

She looks confused, but not angry. Chibs isn't sure what he was expecting. She never voiced an opinion on ‘that sort of thing’ when they were together because it wasn’t something that was routinely admitted in their circles. Being ‘out’ wasn’t a thing, back in the day, and the rings they ran in were as intolerant then as they are now.

She had a cousin who was gay, a lad named Peter who moved to London when he was seventeen to be an interior designer. She had passed comment on how Peter fulfilled every stereotype the telly ever showed when it came to boys who liked boys but, looking back, there was a neutrality to what she said. There wasn’t malice, nor was there acceptance. If anything, there was probably indifference.

It must be different to hear it from your ex-husband, the ‘auld fella’ you made a home and a child with.

“All those times I called and he picked up, said he was fixing your router or watching the game. He was there an awful lot, come to think of it. I should've known something was up. You're not one for having people in your house. You've never got any food in."

“I know it’s a shock, love."

“A shock?” she says. “No. No, Fil, it’s not a shock. It just…is what it is."

“What do you mean, it just is what it is?”

“Exactly that. Filip, It is what it is."

It's just fact, she is saying. Nothing more than that. He is with Juice and there's nothing more to say about it. She can be this way. Her reasoning can be very blunt. It's part of why he loved her. She wasn't an emotionally complicated woman like some of them. She wouldn't trap him with words and hidden meanings. 

Juice is a lot like her in that way. 

"Look, the truth is, I haven’t really 'known' you in over a decade and even before that I wonder if I ever really for. I don’t know what you do. I don’t know how you feel. Bloody Hell, Filip, I couldn’t even tell you how you have your tea these days. “

“Same as always."

"With a shot of whiskey, right?"

Always. He smiles, because he's noticed how she left a bottle on the breakfast bar next to the sugar and it felt like old times. 

"You know me. I haven’t changed all that much. It’s just…things happen. You know that as well as I do. I'd understand if this came as a bit of a fucking surprise."

“A surprise? Yeah, you could say that. But, shocked? No. I'm not shocked. We’re in different places, now. I wouldn’t try to dictate who you fuck any more than I’d expect you to dictate who I do. It’s none of my business.”

And, with that, Chibs realises, it really is quite simply what it is. There is no backlash. There is no judgment. There is just acceptance. He's been up against it all his life. Maybe that's why he always anticipates the worst. 

“Christ," he says. Sighs. "I thought you’d be up in arms.”

“What do you take me for, love? I’m not your mother, thank God. I don’t need to tell you she’ll be turning in her grave at the thought.”

His mother was intolerant. Strict Catholic. Whiter than white. Bearing no bones about it, his mother was everything he doesn't want to be when it came to looking beyond the rigidity of her beliefs. 

“We all know how she felt about you and me. Thank God she snuffed it before Kerri was born is all I have to say about it.”

“She loved you in the end, Fi."

“You’re a liar, Filip Telford. She said I was as black as the Earl of Hell's waistcoat the first time she met me and told me she wanted a good white Catholic for you. Does Kerri know?”

“Aye. Aye, she does. Perceptive lass, is that wee girl.”

“More brains than she knows what to do with. She’s not a wee one any more. She’s a woman, now. Her childhood’s long gone.”

She sounds sad when she says it, the wistful longing of a mother who knows her baby isn't her baby any more. They say the say a mother's child no longer needs her is the most heartbreaking thing they'll ever experience, on some level. Filip would say choosing a club over that very same child only to realise his mistake years on might just come close to that heartache. 

"She sees everything. Knows everything. She's your daughter, alright. In some ways, far more than she's mine."

“She told me not to tell you, said you wouldn’t understand.”

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t know me as well as she thinks she does."

He says it. Braves it. 

He says it because he has to know for sure.

"She thinks you're still in love with me."

Said aloud, it feels like such a big thing, the figurative elephant in the room that will not be danced around because it's a big fucking thing with too much weight and mass to be brushed aside. The weight of her hand patting his thigh only adds to that. 

She does this when she has something serious to say, as if it will soften the blow. 

"Filip, we haven’t been together in a long, long while. I’ll love you till the day I die, I promised that the day we got married. But, we both moved on. I don’t know what went on between the two of you and I can’t say it’s easy to wrap my head around the idea of you in bed with another man…but, what I’ve learned in the past few years is that the more I try to make sense of things, the less sense they make.”

And that, right there, feels like the story of Chibs' life. 

“Half the time It feels like nothing makes sense. But, he does. He fucking does, Fi. Him an’ me, we make sense in the same way you an’ me made sense all those years ago, and you know how it was back then. A white man and a black woman in Belfast? Jesus.”

“Yeah ,but we did it. You know why? Because, sod the lot of them, that’s why. And sod them now, too. He’s a good boy, Filip, and what that club did to him…what you did to him…is unforgivable. He’s a better person than me if he’s given you even half a chance after that.”

That's something Chibs tells himself each and every time Juice falls asleep in his arms, every time he pushes his body against Chibs' in a way that suggests there's nothing more in this world he wants or needs. 

He knows what that means. 

“I know how lucky I am. Christ, he shouldn’t even look at me.”

“But, he does. He always did. Jesus, hindsight’s a fucking grand thing, isn’t it? The way he used to look at you even back then, like you were some kind of bloody King. Should’ve seen it coming.”

“It was different back then.”

“Was it?”

“Aye. That was before. He’s changed. We both have.”

“He’s still the same kid he was, Chibs. Underneath it all. You’d do well to remember that.”

Chibs is quiet for a moment as he takes those words in because he knows it's something he's guilty of; treating Juice as if irrevocably and fundamentally different. 

Part of what is amazing about him is that despite everything, he's still maintained the goodness that was always part of his core. Parts of him might've come away but that still remains. 

“You love him?” she asks, his ex wife, sitting on the ground in the tatters of her own heart.

“More than I should.”

“He’s easy to love.”

“That he is.”

“Makes it all the more screwed up, what happened to him.”

“I’m trying to put that right.”

She looks at him sadly. Seriously. 

“You do realise you never will?”

It feels like lead in his stomach because that's the truth that hurts him the most, the fact that nothing will ever be enough. 

“If I have to spend twenty fucking years trying, I’m willing to do that.”

It's the least he could do. 

“Just as long as you know. You don’t stop trying, you hear me? Same way you won’t stop trying with Kerri.”

“I want what’s best for him. And, for both of you. It’s all I ever wanted, Fi, for you an’ her to be safe. For you to have a fucking life away from all of this. It’s what I tried to do for you.”

“I know that.”

“I was a shitty husband and father but, Christ, I loved you. I love you.”

He always will. It might not be a 'together' kind of love but there's a special bond between a man and the woman who bore his child. It might bend but it never breaks. 

“Is it the same? With him?”

“In some ways, yeah.”

He doesn't tell Fiona that it's more than that; that, in the relatively short time he's been with Chibs he has experienced something he could never put into words. 

"He means everything to me. I just...need you to understand."

“I’m getting old, man. I’ve seen more crap in my time than I care to even think about. Forgive me for popping your bubble here, fella, but you takin’ that boy to bed isn’t at the top of my list of concerns. But, I will tell you this. He’s been through enough already. I can see it in his eyes. He hasn’t got another trauma left in him. If you put him through one I’ll castrate you myself, so help me God.”

There she is, the woman of his dreams. 

There she is. 

She sighs, weary and tired, but still she smiles. Still she pats his thigh like it's a comfort to both of them. 

“Colin was ten years younger than me. Looked ten years older, mind you, but part of me thinks I was hoping he’d make me feel like a girl again. What are like, eh? Are we so desperate to cling onto our youth?”

It's something he's considered, in his more contemplative of moments. 

“Maybe it’s that we didn’t have one, Fi. Did you ever think of that? Look at what they took away from us.”

“Not for our Kerri, eh? Not anymore.”

“Christ, no.”

There's a sense or relief as he pulls her into his arms, this woman who understood him all those years ago and with whom he could just be himself. A rebel. A bad guy. The love of someone's life.

“You’re some woman, Fiona, you know that?”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“I’m not one to throw that around easily. You were an amazing wife. You are the best mother I could ask for, for our girl. Don’t ever forget that, no matter what happens."

She puts her hand out to him. He reaches across, and interlocks their fingers.

“I’m trying to do the right thing. By  
everyone.”

“Just…make sure you’re doing the right thing by yourself to, yeah?”

Sometimes Chibs forgets that.

Juice has taken to reminding him.

He finds him watching a grainy copy of the new Star Wars film on the big TV in the family room and its ironic, really, that there is such a thing in a house like this. What's especially odd is the fact that Chibs’ estranged daughter and the young male lover who she used to pine after as a child are commandeering it.

It's dysfunctional. It's piecemeal. 

He doesn't give a shit. 

“You can get some good shite on the internet,” Kerri says, and she looks so much younger with a mouth full of popcorn, a purple spotted onesie where the mini-skirt once was. Her hair is dragged up and there’s not a scrap of make up to be seen.

She looks like his little girl again.

“You teachin’ my daughter your criminal ways, Juicy Boy?"

“You make me laugh, Dad. You think I’ve never heard of Torrent?”

Juice shakes his head at that and grimaces as if the words wound him. 

“I wouldn’t bother. He still calls it ‘the’ Google. ‘The’ netflicks. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks."

Chibs sinks down on the couch next to Juice and reaches across to thieve a handful of popcorn. It feels so domestic, so...tame.

“So, what’s happening?”

“Let me give you a detailed breakdown, Da. Girl meets wibble ball. Man falls from sky and teams up with girl and wibble ball. They meet an older man and a bug fucking ugly bear. They fly a plane shaped like a saucer and crash a lot for supposed professionals. Men in white suits die - we assume they are bad lads. The neon swords come out and eventually everyone goes home. No sign of Yoda or Patrick Stewart.”

“Patrick Stewart? Kerri, you disappoint me.”

“What?”

“He was in Star Trek, not Star Wars.”

“Ir's all spaceships, isn't it? Isn’t it the same thing?"

"No, no, no."

"What?"

Juice smiles, puts a hand on her shoulder and shakes his head as if there’s nothing worse than hearing someone confuse the two.

It’s endearing, to Chibs. 

It’s beautiful.

“Because I'm the best kinda guy, I’m gonna give you a lesson in Sci-Fi, now, sweetheart. Listen carefully.”

Chibs has to laugh at that. He knows where this is going. 

"Oh, you've had it now. lass."

Juice looks light, lighter than he has in a long while as he gives Chibs the middle finger. 

Chibs feels that weight lift even further.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 - Bonding

There’s a reason Juice doesn’t enjoy sleeping alone.

Even now, after all this time, Juice doesn’t like the early hours of the morning, that quiet, dead and still time between 2 and 5am when Tully was at his most active. All through the night not a creature was stirring in that place, but Tully couldn't even be considered a creature, more an entity. Juice's body and mind learned to be on guard during those times, an innate alarm that refused to allow him to rest for fear of what he might need to flee from when his assailant arrived.

Tully seemed to enjoy him fresh from sleep, his mind safely cushioned in the drugs he gifted him back when he needed them most. He enjoyed the fact he was drowsy and compliant; that any smart comeback or insult was uttered in a fluid drawl. There was no place Juice could go but inside himself, retreating so far into his own head that not even an earthquake would've pulled him out of it. 

Sometimes he will wake up drowsy and confused wondering why nobody has come for him. Then he'll remember that Tully is dead, that he is safe and that the breathing, weighted body beside him would murder anyone or anything that got close to him. Still, he rises, unable to shake the feeling until he's burned it off. 

At home, there’s a treadmill set up in his workspace and he’ll pound it until he can’t breathe anymore; until he’s so exhausted he’ll fall back into sleep 'til his body has had enough. He doesn’t run on asphalt, not any more, the idea of being out and exposed in the dead of night something that messes with his sense of security. It never bothered him before. Often times, he’d be riding through the hills at 3am without a care for who might be behind him. His life, he used to think, was in the hands of fate.

He’s learned not to tempt fate. Fate, he knows, is a spiteful bitch looking for any chance she can get to drag a man down.

He looks at the digital clock on the bedside table when he opens his eyes. It’s 3.30, hours before sunrise. The light sound of Chibs breathing beside him reminds him he’s not alone. Their need for discretion is gone, now that Fiona knows, and Juice is thankful for small mercies such as that one. Disorientation gets him: unfamiliar scents, a bed that’s firmer or softer than what he knows, a room temp that’s not his perfect 19 degrees. It might only last a split second but there’s always a part of him that loses itself, right before it comes back.

When Juice can’t sleep and has nowhere to run, he raids the kitchen. He cooks, blends, prepares, excels. Protein shakes, blended fruits and, when he's feeling the need for good old fashioned comfort food, brownies. The mixing, measuring and combining occupies his mind to the point that he forgets why he’s awake in the first place. He used to drink when he awoke, back when he was in the depth of it all. He’d pour glass after glass of whiskey until he collapsed in a heap on his couch and passed out, cold and alone, only to wake with a pounding headache and a healthy dose of unresolved anxiety.

He’ll never do that again.

He's pouring half a cup of melted chocolate into a bowl when he feels the hand on his shoulder. He doesn't jump because he knows who it is; he caught wind of her perfume before he saw her. 

He's learning to trust his senses, just as his shrink told him to.

"It's almost 4 in the morning, sweetheart. What are you doing up?"

(Trying not to think.)

(Trying not to go places I can’t come back from)

"I’m sorry, Fiona” he says, caught in the act, and he feels the burn in his cheeks as it rises. “I guess I was a little louder than I thought. I tried to keep it down.”

“I’m a light sleeper, Juice. Comes with the territory. What are you doing? Making a mess?"

He holds up a wooden spoon, a sheepish smile on his lips. It’s the smile his mother referred to as his ‘do-no-wrong’ smile because he always seemed to wear it when he was trying to get in her good books.

Juice remembers he was always trying to get in her good books because he loved her so much and because even before his life went to Hell he craved approval from the people he loved. 

“Baked distraction. It's kind of my thing now."

“Brownies?”

“Yeah. I make the best brownies.”

“Don’t we all?”

There's a real ease about Fiona in her own home. Juice thinks he could get used to it, a far cry from the cautious, nervous woman he remembers she could be. He loves the way she speaks, the way she calms the air around her. She reminds him of his own mother in a lot of ways because she was an enduring woman too. 

He looks at the bowl with a resigned sigh. 

“I don’t know what the Hell your measurements mean so they probably won't be up to my usual standards. I just…couldn’t sleep.”

She looks like she understands. She's still dressed. It's pretty clear she hasn't even attempted to rest. Too much on her mind, Juice imagines. Too many variables crashing around up there. The mind can't switch off. It can't power down with too many programmes running. 

Juice's mind crashes sometimes because they're all running at once, causing haywire, wreaking havoc...

She nods down the hallway.

“The old man still asleep?”

“Yeah. He sleeps like the dead.”

“He didn’t used to. Not after...” 

She pauses. Backtracks. The look on her face is that of someone who has said too much; has forgotten her place. 

She clears her throat, composes her train of thought. 

"He just didn’t used to.”

Juice knows what she’s referring to, the darkest moment in Chibs’ life that defines him in so many ways. Sleep cost the life of his friend. Waking confusion and momentary blindness fired the bullet that ended his life. 

Chibs didn't sleep for a long while after that. Not without seeing his face. 

“It’s okay. He’s told me a lot of stuff. I know what happened back then. He still wears it, even now."

“Yeah, he does. Shouldn't, but does."

They're war wounds, marks of a survivor. That's what Venus tells them. Badges of honour and service.

Juice doesn't really buy it. 

“We both wear a lot of things. We all do. We’re trying to share the burden. Ease it off a little for each other, y’know? It kinda helps."

“He’s not as tough as he makes out, Juice. Never was. My Mammy used to say, ‘he’s an Ox, is Filip Telford, and you’d be a half-wit to turn him away', but…"

But he's not. Not all the time. Sometimes the ox needs to lay down his load. Sometimes it needs it's shoulders rubbed and it's burdens halved. 

Chibs is not a robot, never was. 

“He’s a sensitive guy."

More sensitive than Juice had ever imagined. He’s only learning that now. 

“He'd also my arse in front of the lads at SAMBEL but once we got home he’d run me a bath, listen to me whine about the shite that had gone on that day. I loved him for that.”

Juice loves him for that, too. He loves him for his buffalo skin and his soft heart. He loves him for his brash accent and his quiet voice. He loves him for his nuance; all his creaks and crevices.

It feels like they’re forging a bond when she hands him an egg; when she takes the milk out of the fridge and lays it down beside his piled-high mixing bowl. She’s distracted, like she’s moving on autopilot, but there's no danger here. Juice would sense it if there was. 

Chibs told him she accepted them. No hard feelings. Nothing to worry about. 

Juice still worries. 

"Kerri insists on Free Range," she says, of the eggs. "She thinks I'm made of money. They make you pay for morals 'round here. A full Euro more just to know the hens had a bit of grass."

"Ah, you gotta think of the birds, Fiona. Free Range tastes better 'cause they're happy."

"You sound just like her. Pat of eejits."

She paints on a smile so convincing it’s easy to forget her world is tilted on its axis right now. Juice knows how that feels, reaching the conclusion that there’s nothing left for you in the only place you’ve ever loved.

"I'll be counting pennies in dollars soon, won’t I? Won't know where I am at all. She’ll be fleecing me left, right and centre."

It feels strange, talking forgery and illegal entry to the US over melted chocolate and cracked eggs, but here they are. 

Maybe this is what they call domesticity, in their world. 

“The ID for you and Kerrianne? I’ll be clean. My guy’s the best. Two, three days, tops, and we’ll be able to go get it from one of his associates. It’ll be a clean break for both of you."

"Away from the grot, yeah? No more rain. No more tedious club shite."

"Yeah."

On paper it sounds like a good thing but, underneath it all, it's still running away. That’s how she sees it, as if taking an easy exit is something to be ashamed about after years of toil and effort that’s got her precisely nowhere. 

She takes the spoon from his hand for a second it looks as if she's going to take over. Instead, she puts it down on the table and takes that hand in her own. It seems she needs the connection. She clasps it the same way Gemma used to when she was trying to appeal to him on a deeper level. The memory of her is suffocating.

He swallows it down, puts her back in her box until later because Gemma is dead and Fiona is right here.

“You deserve a clean break. You've been through a lot. Both of you. Please don’t see this as a bad thing. Different isn’t always bad. That’s what my therapist keeps telling me.”

“I know that. There’s just nothing clean in running, son. I’m not relishing the prospect, I won’t lie. This is all I know. It’s all I’ve ever known."

She looks him in the eye. Intent. Despairing. 

"The truth is, I don’t know if I’ve got another club in me. Filip seems to have this grand idea that I’m going to slot right in there. I think he forgets I’m his ex-wife and we’ve got so much history between us we could write a bloody book.”

“There’s nothing tying you to us once you get Stateside. You want out? Fine. At least you and Kerri will be safe and in reach, if you need us. But…we’re different. I didn’t think I had another club in me either but they’re family to me, more so now than ever before. That’s how it feels. It’s all I ever wanted.”

Those last words are spoken with a poignant tone that even Juice can hear. He kicks himself for being so transparent until he remembers it doesn’t matter. 

She laughs, but it's the sad, knowing laugh of someone who sees right through it. 

“That’s how they get you, you know? Family. A home. People to take care of you. You ever ask yourself why orphans, ex-cons and cast-offs make the best prospects? The rejects of society. If you’re not there because of nepotism and because Daddy's little prince is the rightful heir to the throne you’re probably what they’ve scraped off the bottom of a barrel.”

They're all ex-cons at SAMCRO. Back in the day they were a merry band of outlaw brothers who couldn't function without each other. 

“I always knew that.”

It didn’t matter, because for a kid like Juice, any affection is better than no affection at all. He spent his life trying to get attention using whatever method he could. 

Jax Teller held the bait out and he snapped onto it and wouldn’t let go.

“I knew but I didn’t care. Just felt better than being alone."

It's the story of Juan Carlos Ortiz' life. 

She puts a hand in his hair and strokes it gently, her eyes meeting his with such painful tenderness it overwhelms him. There was a time he would've given anything for that kind of look. Now, it just unnerves him. 

“Ah, lad, you break my heart. You really do. You always did."

“I’m okay."

It was a lie once. 

It's starting to feel like it could be true. 

"Are you gonna be okay?" he asks, because he wants her to be, wants to feel they at least played a part in making it so. 

She nods her head. 

“I'll be fine once I adjust."

"I understand."

"There was always a part of me that thought we’d get old together in the end, me and Filip. He’d get the club out of his system, I’d stop being such a mardy, awkward cow and we’d find our way back to each other. When I found out he was with someone, I’m not gonna lie, I shed a few tears because there hadn't been anyone since me. Not really. But, he sounded happier. Better. I thought, whatever woman’s letting him get his end away with her, she’s doing him some good.”

But, it wasn't a woman. 

It was a thirty-year-old man with thick, heavy baggage offset by a smile that could end the world. 

She shakes her head.

“I can’t hate you. I wouldn’t want to. I still remember you cheatin' the girls out of Jelly Babies and Liquorice Allsorts. I thought you were too sweet a kid fur the likes of that rabble. All I can do is ask that you take good care of him. He acts like he’s got it all under control but what he really needs is someone to come home to.”

“He means everything to me, Fiona. Everything. Without him I’d be…”

He pauses. Smiles.

(‘I’d be swinging from a tree.’)

“He’s the most important thing in my life.”

"Then, you have nothing to worry about. If you were a lesser man I might be waiting for it all to fall the bits. Might even hope to pick up the pieces."

Juice doesn't doubt that. He doesn't doubt she would be waiting in the sidelines to be tapped in if he were somebody else.

"I'm happy you found each other. You both needed that."

It goes a long way, knowing he won't have to watch his back. 

He's grateful for the reassurance. 

They stand like that for a short while. Juice can see the thoughts building up in Fiona, a nostalgic kind of melancholy that comes with loving something and setting it free. When he squeezes her hand she snaps out if it, composes herself as best she can. 

"Right, then. I'm gonna go back to bed, see if I can catch some shut eye before the dog kicks off again. There's beer in the fridge. Take what you want, if you need to. Just wanted to see if everything was alright."

"I'm good. Thanks. I'll try to keep it down."

"Don't worry about it. It's nice to know we're not alone. I can't cope with silence any more. Too many ghosts."

Juice understands ghosts that wail in the silence. He hears them each and every night. 

(Clay. Bobby. Gemma. Tara...)

They're getting quieter, though, and that's good enough for Juice. 

He doesn't think he wants them to be silences.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a tiny update while I try to get my groove back :)

For as long as Chibs has known him, Juice has not been trusted alone. It’s why what happened towards the end of Jax’ tenure seems so wildly unbelievable to him, looking back, but hindsight is the smug, self righteous whore that doesn’t let it drop; the superior, high pitched voice that besmirches each and every bad choice a man makes.

Clay thought Juice had a few screws loose, though not in the same way Tig and Happy did. He likened him to a Looney Tunes cartoon at one point, all big eyes and reckless abandon and not a smidgen of common sense to be seen. Gemma wondered if he was a little slow at times, a little naïve and it was a thought than ran throughout the club. They called him an idiot. A half-wit. They called him Forrest Gump.

Chibs doesn’t see Forrest Gump standing before him, nor does he see an idiot. He doesn’t see a half-wit. He sees a man with dead-serious eyes whose naivety has been wasted by years of degradation. He’s asking to be trusted alone. He’s asking to be given leave to do something by himself. It’s not that Chibs doesn’t trust him. It never was. It’s that he doesn’t trust other people with him.

Juice is scheduled to meet with 'associate' who is going to aid his wife and daughter in their travels. 

He's insistent he needs to go it alone. 

“My guy doesn’t trust easily,” he explains, and to Chibs he looks like a kid trying to bargain his way into an extended curfew by logical reasoning. “If you come with, he’ll run. Then where will we be? I don't have anyone else. This is it."

“Tell him I’ll be there. No surprises if he’s expecting me.”

“It doesn’t work like that. You gotta understand he risk he’s taking, pulling this outta the bag for me. It’s not as simple as putting a fake photo in a stolen passport, y’know? He’s gotta hack the system, leave a trail. You have any idea how much jail time that’d be if he got caught?”

“I don’t care about him, Juicy. I care about you.”

So much. Too fucking much. 

“I know you do, Chibby, and that means the fucking world to me, but this is the way it has to be.”

He has to climb back on the Harley that was his independence, that's what he keeps saying. She rode away awhile ago and he's been chasing her ever since. 

Chibs knows the risks of climbing back on prematurely. The pressure can buck and break a man. He doesn't want Juice broken. 

Again. 

"Just me, Telford. That was the agreement."

“So, I just let you walk into this on your own in a foreign country? I know how it works over here, Juicy. I’m afraid you don’t.”

“He told me straight out he doesn’t trust you after what you - um..."

“ – after what I did to you. You can say it.”

Juice doesn't squirm, but he does shift a little. He's adamant he doesn't want to hurt Chibs, knows this truth might. It’s an ugly truth, not wholly undeserved, not one they cannot overcome but one that will always hang in the air at times like this. 

He touches Chibs’ hand to cushion the blow. 

“It’s nothing personal.”

“It is, though, isn’t it?”

Of course it is. It was personal when Fiona spoke of it. It was personal when Venus told him no man on her watch would give up on a brother the way they all gave up on each other, a dozen Judases falling under the whims and wishes of a gavel-wielding devil. 

It's personal every time that man who knows she is a woman tells him if he hurts this boy again she will cut him like a fish and use his dried intestines as costume jewellery because his thick Scottish morsels will look glorious against the natural tan of her skin.

It’s just personal. 

"Ah, Juicy."

“Forget it. Stop going to that place, Chibby. What he thinks of you doesn’t matter. What matters is he’s getting us what we need. You gotta trust me to take care of myself. Otherwise, this is no go, and Fiona and Kerri got no chance."

("I'll protect them with my life, brother.")

“I can’t be the reason they’re left behind.”

It occurs to Chibs that Juice is willing to put himself in danger for his family. He's willing to push himself beyond what he's ready for because it's what his ex-wife needs. He wonders if Juice will ever learn to put himself first or if that will be the longest uphill battle he's ever attempted to win. 

Juice has self-sacrificed too many times. The call for that is at an end. 

“I promised myself I’d never let anything happen to you again. How can I keep that promise if I just let you go in blind? You don't know this place like I do. This was my home and my hell for longer than I would’ve liked. I know its people."

“And, I lived in the tough part of Queens.”

Juice just smiles that disarming smile, that everyman grin he wears so well, and Chibs knows it's done. He’s always loved that smile. He’s always hated it too because it’s the trump card, always was, and when it’s flashed Juice knows he’s won. 

“I took care of myself for years, old man. I'm like a cockroach. Can’t keep me down. You gotta trust me on that.”

“Okay. Alright.”

It’s hard for Chibs to let go. He still has dreams some nights, vivid nightmares that take him in their hold and shake him to the very core.

Juice, his face pushed down into a mattress, his wide, dead eyes staring at nothing as he is dehumanised again and again and again.

His Juice, his throat opened from ear to ear, lying cold, dead and alone on a morgue slab as an indifferent prison doctor tends to his corpse.

His Juice, his spirit broken, sitting high up in a tree waiting for the courage to jump from it.

He won't jump. Not now. Not with the safety net Chibs has laid out for him. 

"It'll be cool, man. I got this covered."

He's so sure...

“If you must. But, I’m taking you. I’ll park the car a block away, and you’ll keep a phone line open so I can hear everything that’s going on. If I feel uncomfortable at any second, I’m going in. I don't give a shite. We'll find another way. You got that?”

“I got it.”

“I’m not lettin’ you walk in anywhere without backup. Not again. Where you go, I go. I don’t give a shite what anyone thinks of that. Club rules, Juicy. Never alone.”

Never alone.

Never again. 

There's a simple fact that never fails to choke Chibs with the magnitude of it. 

If anything were to happen to Juice, he doesn't think he'd survive it. 

(*)

"This feels kinda like old times."

The two of them driving off some place together fighting over the radio, over who gets to drive and who gets to sleep. The pair of them taking turns at the wheel on some intel mission or other; on some surveillance job where they drew the short straw and had to pull an all-nighter with only their wit and humour to pass the time.

The simpler times. 

"Yeah, it does."

"I always liked it best when it was you. Tiggy was an asshole and Half Sack never stopped talking."

"Would've been useful if he made any sense."

They used to say the same about Juice. The kid’s got too much mouth, they’d say, thinks before he speaks and acts before he thinks. Impulsive and loose tongued. Can’t lie for shit, they’d say, and it was always part of what Chibs liked about him. He learned to reel it in over time but he still remembers back to those early days when Juice’s heart was so firmly on its sleeve you could see it beat from a mile away. 

"You and me, Chibby, we were always good together. Even before. Should've screwed you sooner, old man. It might've saved me a world of hurt."

"Nah. I probably would've punched your lights out. When we got there it was the right time. Tons of baggage but no holding back. Clay would’ve had our guts for garters if he’d known. We got it right."

"Totally. Fireworks and earth moving and all that shit."

When Juice smirks there’s a vibrant self confidence in it. Chibs finds it the most attractive thing in the universe, right now. It feels like a long time coming. 

"You laugh, Juicy Boy..."

"I'm not laughing. I’m being deadly serious"

"I'm glad you're laughing. You haven't done nearly enough of that in the last few years."

Tiggy used to say he was retarded, moon-faced, always with a big stupid dog smile on his chops. Who does that? Who acts like that? It’s amazing it took so long for them all to figure it out once the smile had gone.

“I mean it, lad. Your happiness means the fucking world to me.”

"Aw, don't get all sentimental on me"

"I'm not. I'm just saying."

"That you missed my beautiful smile?"

God, yes. 

"Getting a little full of yourself, aren't you, lad?"

"It's fact."

He’s not wrong. Not about that. 

Chibs hopes he's still smiling after this meet. 

Juice himself feels good about it - excited, almost. It really does feel like old times, before it all went down. Before Rooseveld. Before Miles. Before Jax and before Tully. He could never explain the kick he got out of walking the knife's edge. His sister called him a masochist before she truly knew the meaning of the word and he’d probably agree. It’s why people jump off buildings and ride rollercoasters. Something about the thrill of adrenaline; of not knowing if this is going to truly be the last thing you do. Juice has always got off on that. 

If he’s honest, Juice understands it. He gets why he always tried to big up, man up, try to make something of himself. It’s why he was the first into a fight and a drag race, the last to back down when the going got tough. He knows it was a little boy living a tough life and trying to look like a fearless man.

Maybe it's still that way. Maybe that's still what he is. 

He can't hold back the rush, though, and he won't deny himself the feeling. 

“I can do this,” he says, though eh doesn’t know who he’s saying the words to. Is he reassuring Chibs or is he psyching himself up? “My boy wouldn’t let me down.”

Juice knows. Trusts. He knows his guy wouldn't set him up for a fall because they go way back and Queens loyalty isn’t something that dies away. He knew him when he was living back home chalking up petty crime. They both went into computers at the same time. Juice got into gangs, he got into organised cybercrime. They wouldn't fuck each other over, not with that much history.

The guy Donal is a trusted associate so Juice will treat him as such. 

“He’s supposed to be pretty good. Reliable. No problems so far.”

"I can't say I've heard of him," Chibs says. "I haven't heard of any of your lads."

"They're hackers, Chibby. That's the whole point. A good hacker is like an urban legend. They go by a name. If you're lucky, you get to meet them. Trust me, all my guys are good guys. If they trust? I trust."

Those guys have hacked security databases and planted Fiona and Kerri's information. Background. History. Fingerprints. They’ve isolated the details so there’s no chance of error. The girls just need the hard candy and it's all go.

“I told Kerri she needed to pick an inconspicuous name. She went with Celine. Said it made her sound beautiful.”

Chibs smiles at that.

“Typical woman. Let me guess. Fiona went with Abigail. Her grandmother’s name. She’s never used it as an alias before. Makes sense that’s the name she’d settle for.”

He smiles, and there’s nostalgia in it.

“Means she doesn’t want to run anymore.”

“Well, she won’t have to.”

It seems strange to Chibs that they're meeting at a residential address. He's been told it's Donal's grandmother's place. Chibs thinks it sounds fishy. Juice knows it's not.

"All the best guys work from Grandma's basement. That ain't a cliche. You gotta be unassuming in this game…which obviously makes the mohawk and tats even more ridiculous."

"You never were conventional."

"Nah. Never.”

This, all of this, it’s nostalgic for Juice. It makes him feel like a kid again, hoppin' round to some shithole or another to pick up a fake ID before he learned to make them himself. It's novel, feeling young. He's felt old and worn for the longest time. An old wheel. An old dash. A cracked screen. 

He's starting to feel new again. 

"It's just up here," Chibs tells him, and his heart skips a little because there's always a chance, the slightest chance, that this could all go wrong. 

His head says stop. Think. 

His therapist says think. Walk away.

His heart says, fuck it all, you were born for this shit.


	12. Chapter 12

_Juice set up his first ‘clinic’ after he was released from the Unit. He was placed with a temporary foster carer the minute he got out and for a little while he went with it. It was a single woman, sixty-two years old and as passive as a doe. She let him come and go as he pleased and, as long as he didn’t cause her any trouble, gave him the run of the place. He commandeered the garage because it wasn’t being used, built himself a computer from scrap circuits and old towers and started studying the law of the land._

_The internet wasn’t what it was back then, a mere scrap of a thing with loose ends and poor coding. The old woman would yell at him constantly because he was hogging up the landline. Juice figured out early on that the neighbours worked long hours, sometimes not coming home at all, so tapping into their phone line wasn’t too difficult. He felt guilt, sure, their monthly outgoings must’ve had them scratching their heads but Juice was able to justify it because of the way they left their dog out in all weathers to howl at the moon and scare the local children. He justified a lot that way, figured people deserved what they got if they couldn’t just be nice to other living things._

_Juice made the most out of what he had. Sure, his ‘office’ was a dumb fucking place with mould on the floors and bits of old lawnmower were hung up like some screwed up wall hanging but it was the beginning of things. You gotta start off small, he told his sister, whose own life had taken such a downward turn she barely had the capacity to even pour scorn on his idealistic plans – but, when she brought him a worn old printer for his birthday it meant more to him than if she’d bought him a damn car because it proved she’d been listening; that she had faith in him, even if she didn’t show it._

_He genuinely feels those nights in that old garage with his head in books of code were the beginning of everything. It all went from there. It all built from there.  
It took six months for him to get his first ‘deal’, another three to start building up associations._

_As the internet began to expand, so did Juice’s list of associates and, with it, horizons opened up for him._

_Things went ahead._

Standing at this front door he’s reminded of his own humble beginnings, that old house in Brooklyn where the old woman still lives, he’s sure, taking in the waifs and strays of this world until they’re good to go it alone. A good woman, no doubt, but lacking understanding in a lot of ways. 

It's clear an old woman lives here, too. The garden is neat and tended, a family car in the driveway with a ‘grandchild on board’ banner hanging proud in the window. The curtains are pulled back, neat and clean, and on the window ledge there appears to be a row of photographs, their pictures facing inwards. It gives the impression of a family home, idealistic and well kept. It’s hard to imagine anything going down here, but Juice remembers something Clay told him a long, long time ago.

“You look innocent, Juan Carlos Ortiz. You may not be but it’s the illusion of innocence that counts. It puts a person off guard. It lulls them into a false sense of security.”

He wonders if his own sense of security is false; if he’s being drawn in by how something looks. 

He remembers his last time inside, remembers the malevolence of Tully as seen on the surface and how, just by looking at him, you knew there was something terribly wrong. Then he remembers Christell, all wholesome and boyish, all Sunday School graduate, all choirboy extraordinaire. Butter wouldn’t melt in that boy’s mouth yet with the right puppet pulling his strings he became a force to be reckoned with.

He wonders if Jax saw him coming or, like most, he wrote him off because he looked like he couldn’t land a punch if his life depended on it. He wonders what crossed Jax’ mind when he finally realised he’d underestimated the kid.

Juice will never underestimate another man. He will also never underestimate the danger he faces each and every ‘deal’ he does and no matter how neat the garden or how hapless the ‘associate’ seems, Juice will always be on his guard.

He’s cheated death enough times to go into it with his eyes closed.

He knocks on the door and, when his hands fall to his sides, he primes himself for anything. He is ready.

“Who is it?” a voice asks and, following the ‘script’ prepared for him by his own guys back in the states, he tells the Irishman it’s “Matthew from Piers Double Glazing.”

“I’m here to take a look at your upstairs windows?”

It’s the equivalent of a secret handshake only less conspicuous. There’s a real problem with cold calling in these parts, he was told, and a good percentage of criminals use the technique to get around undetected. It seems primitive, in some ways, but Juice guesses this is another place. Another world. There’s a bucketload of paranoia that’s heaped onto the shoulders of those in the area merely because of the history of this place.

He is an outsider, ergo he may not be trusted.

He is inherently dangerous just for being an outsider.

Juice takes a deep breath and waits to see if access is going to be granted. He feels a distinct sense of relief when he hears the chain-lock going on the inside of the door.

The guy is carrying, that much is clear, but Juice can tell by his face it’s for protection rather than threat. He looks young, maybe twenty-four, twenty-five, and by the looks of him he couldn’t hold his own in a fight, hence the gun.

“Carl says you’re clean,” he says, though the way his eyes shift around indicates he’s not sure he believes it. Juice tries to disarm him with a smile and a nod.

“We go back a long way. He was one of my crew, back in the day.”

Donal nods, but says nothing else. He steps aside, indicating that Juice has passed whatever test he had prepared, and beckons him inside.

It’s only once the door closes that he begins to breathe a little.

"We good?" Juice asks. 

“Sorry. You never can be too careful around here. Landmines al over the place, if you get my meaning."

Juice understands.

He understands only too well.

(*)

“I know you. Carl said you used to go by the name Cheesemetal?"

“I sure did. Got it tattooed on my arm. See?”

The tattoo has been the cause of much confusion within the club. Juice had insisted it was ink that meant something to him because music is as much a part of him as the club is but there had always been an air of ridicule about it. He'd considered getting Led Zep lyrics tattooed across his ribcage but he figured it would've earned him more scorn so he didn't bother.

He loves that tatt. After the skull piece it was his next venture. 

There innocence in it. 

“You used to be all over the forums," Donal says. "You were decent."

“Yeah, I was pretty good, back in the day, but I got out."

"How come?"

Juice shrugs.

"I’m more a people person. It was driving me crazy that half my friends were online. Could talk to people for years and never breathe the same air as 'em. Cool for some, just not for me."

"I'm not much of a people person."

He can see by looking at the young Irishman that he doesn't get out much. There's an awkwardness about him that's common in this field, guys with brains wreaking havoc on the world but never leaving their bedroom. He's known of guys who took down entire organisations before breakfast without even getting dressed. 

“My nan's got MS. She needs help getting around. I’m on a carer’s allowance so I can take care of the old bird."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. She’s in hospital at the minute so I’ve got the place to myself. Trying to earn a bit of extra cash because the pay’s shite for what I do. I can't leave her. I'm all she's got."

There's a real honesty about this guy, a sincerity that's rare in this day and age and in this world. Juice finds himself warm to the guy. It's clear he has a difficult life and Juice knows only too well the escapism this kind of work affords. 

“You get a lot of work?”

"A fair bit. I’m not proud of it but I’ve got a thing with a few traffickers moving people into Britain from the Middle East. They’re always looking for passports. My nan'd kill me if she knew. She reckons Great Britain's sinking. I don’t give a fuck as long as they’re not coming to Ireland. Most of them want to go to London or Birmingham. Let the Queen look after them."

The guy speaks with the deep drawl of the region but there's no harshness to him, not like Juice has encountered. Maybe he hasn't been burned yet, maybe he's just that good. He reminds Juice of guys he used up know, way back. Guys he ran with. He feels a real sense of melancholy when he talks to him because when he looks at this guy he sees himself years ago, a less scarred and less tainted version of himself. A version of himself that didn't know just how shitty it could get. He misses it, all this, misses the rush, misses the pleasure he felt when he broke down a wall or got past a high-tech security system. 

He misses the sense of achievement when he put something together that would benefit someone else. Sure, he loves the bikes, loves running his hands along the spine of a Harley he’s lovingly built or restored, but it doesn’t play with his mind the way hacking and counterfeiting used to.

There’s a real beauty in code; a real security in it.

He figures he'll make something of that when he gets back. He'll figure something out. 

"So," he says. Smiles. "You got them? I can talk with the best of 'em but I'm kind of on a schedule."

It's not that Juice thinks he's stalling but it wouldn't be the first time.

"Oh. Aye. Gimme a second."

He gives the room a quick scan before he moves to the fireplace. Three bricks down there's an opening. At first Juice thinks he's shoved them in the crevice and he blanches at how primitive it is but there's a concealed lever, a push latch that opens up the whole side of the facade.

The safe lies behind. 

"You never can be too careful. Even in your own home."

Juice thinks of Gemma rifling in Jax's things, Clay having to hide things in planters out back to keep get prying hands of them. 

"You got that right."

(*)

“She looks familiar,” Donal says, of Kerrianne. “I probably don’t know her but I feel like I might. Who is she?”

“A relative of a friend.”

Juice doesn’t want to say too much. He feels that Kerri and Fiona’s identities are precious things worth keeping to himself and, though he feels as though Donal is a good guy, he doesn’t want to give too much away. On the surface, Jax Teller seemed like a good guy...

"It's all clean. I'm the best at what I do. You won't have any trouble with them."

"That's good, man. Thank you."

He looks reluctant when handing them over, almost like he doesn't want to let them go. Juice looks around, sees the loneliness of his life, feels the empty space around him and it makes sense. Juice is probably the first person he's spoken to all day, will likely be the last outside of a sick grandmother in a hospital bed. 

He gets that. 

He just hasn't got time for it. 

"So, uh. I should get going. Paying cash?"

"Five thousand euro."

"Sure thing."

It seems like easy money but Juice knows the risk involved, knows what's at stake if he were to get caught. Prison isn't easy in these parts. Too many gangs. Too much tension. Juice can see in his eyes he wouldn't last a minute. 

Hopefully he will never see the inside. Maybe he'll even go legit. 

It's not for Juice to worry about, though. Can't be. 

“You see?” he tells Chibs, as he throws the passports into his lap in the cat, "not everyone’s an asshole."

"Aye, well. Some are."

"Such a cynic."

It could be that Juice ignored the signs, could be he just didn't see them for what they truly were. He put them down to nerves. Awkwardness. Loneliness. Maybe his glass half full approach will forever be a nemesis he cannot overcome. 

Whatever it is, hindsight may prove to be the most valuable thing in the world when it comes to evaluating where it went wrong but, as Donal McIntyre picks up the phone and patches through to SAMBEL, he proves that trust is a delicate thing and is barely worth the metaphorical paper it's written on.

It wasn't that he didn't want to be alone, it's that he wanted to stall for time.

He had a job to do. 

"Hey," he says, and his eyes shift even in solitude because he's not kidding when he says his paranoia runs deep.

"Is he there?"

He's not. They're not. 

He fucked up.

"No. I couldn't stall him. Had to hand the stuff over. He would've got suspicious if I'd held off any longer."

"That wasn't the deal, Donal. The deal was you keep him there, call us and we come 'round and wipe the floor with him away from the Scottish prick's territory. You do your job, then we give you your money."

"He would've known."

"No my issue, lad. You had a task to do."

Donal sighs. He's not made for double crossing but he really needs the association. Needs the cash. That he's the go-to guy for travel documentation made it easy for the club to get a head on things. A few subtle threats to his grandmother has him dangling on a fish hook. 

Sometimes, Donal curses the monopoly he has of this place. 

He presses his forehead against the window. 

He's this close to bashing his head against it.

"Look, if it helps, I can tell you where they're gonna be tonight. You can catch them out then. Please. I really need the money, Seamus. For my nan."

It's what he tells himself, time and time again. That he's doing this for his nan so that she can be comfortable, that he is not responsible for anything that comes of the intel he passes over. 

It's the only way he can sleep at night. 

"They're gonna be at O'Neills."


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can only apologise...

Though she’s grown up past her mother’s height, would pass for an adult with just the right make-up and clothing and can hold a mature, engrossing conversation about politics and adult topics when the mood happens to take her, Kerrianne is still very much a child in a lot of ways.

They arrive home to find Fiona sitting on the couch, her hands clutched around a strong cup of coffee and her face the very epitome of the tribulations of parenthood. Her bruised face burns brightly in the harsh light of the living room, augmented by the furrows on her brow. She looks older like this, but at the same time she’s smiling

Chibs stops as he comes through the door, takes in the pile of papers that’s scattered across the living room floor, the shredded leather jacket that hugs the sideboard near the back stairs. The ground thumps with drum and bass music that’s heavy in the walls. It’s as if the whole house is made of living, breathing noise.

“This,” Fiona says, “is what you’ve been missing for all these bloody years. And, I dare add, what you've got to come until she grows out of it."

'This', it turns out, is the epitome of callow youth; the devastating pain of rejection. At Kerri’s age, the tiniest infraction feels like the end of the world. Christ knows how teenagers used to rule nations, back in the day, because Hell hath no fury than a young girl scorned.

“I don’t know what she thought was going to happen,” her mother explains. “A long distance relationship? Christ knows. Of course he was going to drop her the minute word got out you’d insulted their King. They would've seen it as a test of loyalty."

“He dumped her?”

“Aye. By text, no less. Apparently, it’s the biggest insult a person can deal to another. I tell you, it’s another world nowadays. Whatever happened to looking someone in the eye when you’re breaking their heart?”

The world is such a strange place, Chibs thinks. He sees it in Juice, not quite the next generation but close enough. His phone dictates his life in a lot of ways. Email. Text. Voicemail. Internet. It’s all all there in his pocket, a lifeline sponsored by Apple. 

Chibs misses the old days when people actually had conversations.

“You want me to talk to her? Father to daughter? I feel like I’ve got years of this to make up for.”

If anything, Fiona just looks amused, like this is a flash in the pan, something she’s lived and breathed for so long she doesn’t even bat an eyelid any more.  
She’s happy for the help.

“If you can get past the threshold you’re doing better than me. She called me a bitch and slammed the door in my face. Apparently, I couldn’t possibly understand.”

“Aye, well, we’ll nip that in the bud here and now. I’m not having her talk to you like that anymore.”

“Ah, you have to pick your battles, Filip. You’ll learn that soon enough.”

Juice doesn’t remember the first time a girl or boy broke his heart. It’s fascinating, watching the way Fiona and Chibs bounce off each other for the good of their child. There’s something beautiful in it. Something pure and brilliant. In the short time he’s been here he’s felt a sense of true family, perfect in its imperfection and hopeful, so fucking hopeful.

He wishes he’d had this, growing up.

“So,” he says, as Chibs leaves him alone with Fiona. He smiles. “Wanna see your ticket outta here, Miss Abigail McNamara?"

"Ah, go on, then."

"We knocked five years off your date of birth, you’ll be happy to know. You’re also a Libra which, according to Kerri’s magazine on the bathroom floor, is the best sign there is.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then…”

She looks down at the papers in her hand, a physical and tangible representation of a new life that's come about so quickly. Too quickly. For a split second he sees something in Fiona’s eye that alarms him. Fear, perhaps. Apprehension. It’s only now that he looks at the passport in his hand he realises just what this means to her.

She’s leaving everything behind. She’s casting aside everything she knows, everything she’s always known.

He understands how terrifying that must be.

"I have Kerri's, too. We kept her pretty much the same. It's just the name. She wanted us to make her older but that wasn't gonna happen." 

“Give it here, lad,” Fiona says, banishing the apprehension like an unwelcome ghost. “Let’s have a look.”

The lingering look she gives him indicates she knows he saw her momentary weakness, even if it was only a flash. She knows he saw through the bravado and witnessed the raw panic she hides so well. 

She runs her finger across the picture of her baby girl next to a name and details that don’t belong to her as if memorising them.

"She looks like a woman. Not my babba any more. Look at her. She has my daddy's eyes. My mammy's beautiful hair."

She doesn’t look up when Juice puts his hand on her shoulder, runs his fingers against her neck in precisely the same way she strokes that photo.

"Poor wee cow's not gonna know what's hit her. She doesn't make friends easy, my girl. Doesn't trust easy."

“It’s okay to be nervous,” he says. "For you. For her."

"No, it isn't. I've told you that before."

“I promise I won’t say anything to anyone.”

He understands this is her biggest fear; showing her weakness. She doesn’t want Chibs to see, doesn’t want Kerri to see either. She doesn’t want them to know how much this past few days have taken their toll on her; how the weeks that went before have weighed so heavily on her that she didn’t know how she’d cope.

“Our little secret, eh?” she says, as she reaches up to cover his hand with her own. “Yours and mine?”

“Yeah."

She smiles at that.

“I trust you. She does, too."

“It means a lot.”

"It's a start."

(*)

"That wee piss stain isn't worth your tears, love."

Kerri doesn't cry on her father's shoulder. Her tears, it seems, are held firm behind the steel barriers of her affront. 

"Tears? You having a laugh? He won't get another like me. I'll cry for no man. Or, boy. He's kidding himself if he thinks he's a fucking man."

She says it more to herself than anyone else. 

"Who else would put up with his shite? All that bloody insecurity? Who'd mind that?"

"I don't know, love."

"He didn't know how lucky he was to have me."

It goes on for a little, this little diatribe, while until it seems it's exhausted her, this tearing a boy to pieces the way she tore up the club jacket he gave her.

Thinking of it lying in tatters feels almost symbolic. 

"That fucking club. It ruined Mam's life. Probably would've ruined mine, too."

"Aye, darlin'. That's why we're leaving, like we said. A better life for the both of you. And him? That gobshite? There's plenty more -"

She stops him physically, a finger on his scarred lips. 

She doesn't see those scars any more. 

"-if you say 'plenty more fish in the sea' I'll pan you, I swear to God."

"I'll say nothing."

"Good. I can't be arsed with platitudes, Da, I really can't."

"I don't blame you."

Chibs looks at her, his girl, his flesh and blood, and he sees himself looking back. His words. His sentiment. 

She might've been raised by her mother but she is her father's daughter. 

(*)

In some ways, it's like they're saying goodbye: revisiting places of beauty before leaving it behind for good. The swing park, where Kerri favoured the roundabout as a little girl, tainted somehow with the revelation it was where she had her first 'snog'. The little pond in the middle of the green where they used to catch tadpoles ("sperms") in little glass jars, watching them swim around a bit before releasing them back to the water. The bench where they used to eat their packed sandwiches because McDonalds was a treat reserved for the best behaviour and back then they weren't made of money. There's graffiti on that bench now applauding Devin McLaren for fingering Caitlin Murphy in that spot back in 2006. There's no innocence left, it seems. Last stop is Belfast Castle, where Chibs told his then five year old daughter she'd live one day as a Princess. 

"I'm still holding out hope," she says, "but there are no Princes in this neck of the woods, I'll tell you that much."

Juice takes in the marvels of Chibs' life before it was taken apart. So different, it is. So far removed. 

He can't help but feel on the outside, like he's walking in the shadows a little or watching from behind glass. He used to feel this way a lot. His sister called it a form of emotional self harm, the way he'd take himself off to Central Park to watch the dads teaching their kids to skate and the moms with their shopping bags and new clothes. 

Sometimes he'd walk a little behind and, as they carried on walking, he'd stop to fasten his shoelace, pretending he'd catch up with them once he was done. He always felt like the world was forever showing him what he wanted and would never have, keeping him in sight but at a distance. He understands what his sister was saying, now, but still. Old habits die hard. 

He stops for a second, just a second, and the other three carry on walking. He crouches down to a lace that is still firm and tight and unravels it, folding it in his fingers as he watches the distance grow deeper and deeper between them. He feels that same pang of regret. Of abandonment. He knows this is fucking juvenile but he can't help but follow his own pattern of insecurity. He waits for them to fall out of sight, the way they always do. 

He wonders why he ever thought this would be okay and it pains him, deep inside, a gouging, chronic ache those years of disappointment has instilled. 

Then, it all changes. It stops. 

It's Kerri who turns around first, as if sensing something has been left behind. Her right knee bends inward and her head tilts and, if she had a smack of gum in her mouth she'd look like the girls back home. Young. Careless. Totally alien to him. 

"Come on with ye," she shouts. "We've a bus to catch."

And, just like that, the chronic pain lifts. Years and years of looking but not touching ends. 

It's overwhelming. 

It's agony, in the very best way. 

"Just gimme a second," he calls out, and he hopes they can't hear the quake in his voice. 

"Hurry up."

"Alright, alright. I'm there."

He picks up the pace to a light jog, no more skulking in the background, no more holding back in the hopes a mother and father don't see what it is he's trying to so. 

This isn't fantasy any more. 

"Didn't your mam ever tell you not to go missing in strange parks?" Kerri asks, as she links her arm through his and leaves it there. "There are strange old men living in the bushes. The minute they see you on your own? Well, it doesn't bear thinking."

He looks at Chibs, who bites back a laugh but offers a knowing look, a tolerant look that Juice has seen on his face many times before. It's usually aimed at someone else in relation to something Juice himself has said. 

He grins. 

It's warm on his face. 

"So, when you say old, do you mean like 'Sands of Time God' old or 'your dad' old?"

Chibs grins back. Happy. Content. 

"You cheeky bastard."

"Always, old man."

(*)

It doesn't last long, the hopeful bliss, the dysfunctional, familial happiness. 

They're just getting started on their appetisers when the bullets pepper the window in front of them, shattering more than just the glass and the restaurant facade. 

That only this restaurant was hit leaves no doubt that this was a targeted attack. 

That they were the only customers leaves no doubt whatsoever.


End file.
